Like many listeners, I was moved by Eric Church’s commencement address at UNC. He struck a particular chord with me because I learned to play guitar in college after a period in my life when I’d lost my way or, as Church described, “fell out of tune.”
Though I’d thought about playing in high school, I first picked up a guitar during my sophomore year of college when I borrowed an acoustic from a fraternity brother. I had the hardest time tuning the instrument; I still remember the frustration. But I had Wes and Russell, two buddies who were unbelievably patient with me.
They helped me tune the guitar, they showed me the basic three chords, and they stuck around as I mangled them over and over. Those guys taught me to play my first song, Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” with the added “Hey, hey, yeah” of the Guns N’ Roses version.
Both of them transferred to other colleges before our junior year. Though we lost touch after a few years, they gave me a lasting gift. A few years after my graduation, after falling in and out of love with someone else, I spent an evening around a backyard campfire playing guitar and singing with a cute young woman.
Every now and then, I’ll pull down one of the acoustic guitars that hang on our living room wall and strum one for my wife to sing along. We still play a lot of Dylan: “If you want me, Honey Baby, I’ll be here.”
Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of the book with Wipf and Stock Publishers titled This Is the Day: A Year of Observing Unofficial Holidays about Ampersands, Bobbleheads, Buttons, Cousins, Hairball Awareness, Humbugs, Serendipity, Star Wars, Teenagers, Tenderness, Walking to School, Yo-Yos, and More. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he is a student of joy.
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