The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I decided, in the dreary months of the monsoons, to while away the sunless days by learning a new trade. If you read what passes as medical news, you’ll no doubt know that exercising the brain is supposed to thwart dementia, Alzheimers and probably premature hair loss, something to do with synaptic heat generation upstairs. Course, like with physical exertion, it’s best to go slow, work into it, don’t strain, know your limits — all that cautionary advice — before you tackle, oh, quantum mechanics or the future subjective clauses of Swahili.

So I detoured away from Kantian philosophy or a complete study of Middle Eastern history from the ancient Assyrians to Modern Israel. I’d keep it simple, South End, just baby steps toward a rich and complex intellectual pursuit of, well, who cares? Crossword puzzles, they say, work as well as anything. Why not learn words that no one ever uses? Me, I decided to build a banjo. I can guess what you’re thinking. I can guess because the missuz thought the same thing.

A banjo is a simple device, got a drum attached to a skinny neck with strings you whack and the thing makes a rhythmic caterwaul that you either tap a foot to or you want to stomp on with that foot. You could attach a cigar box or a cookie tin to a 2×4 and tie some wire and when you got done, it would sound pretty much like a banjo. Hell, it would BE a banjo. And sure, I could’ve done that, I could’ve taken the Easy Road, but … the point is to avoid Dementia, not embrace it. So I set out to build not just a banjo, but a work of art. And hopefully … one I could play.

I thought I’d apply my limited luthier skills to this, then probably move on to maybe cellos, make the missuz a grand piano, then when my intellectual stamina was up to it, move on to a new theory of music based on atonalities, discordant triads and a rap musician-on-meth’s rhyming Simon phraseology. Roll over Alzheimer, give Beethoven the news…

I write this after a month of whittling necks, carving pegheads, cutting saddles and nuts and armrests and dowel sticks, all those ephemera you’ll never use outside the NY Times Crossword Puzzle. But I had to design them, laminate and saw them, fit them, adjust them …. more than once, more sometimes than twice. For a novice, this is like flying to the space station — but you need to build the vehicle. And somewhere, oh, maybe when you ignite the propane canister boosters you think will propel you through the first layer of the atmosphere, you realize, far too belatedly, it’s not Alzheimers you should fear, not dementia, not even South End Senility.

No, it’s insanity. And if you could only forget … if the memory of this was forever lost … you might feel blessed. But you’ve closed that avenue now. You’ve got the synaptic strength of a hormonal teenager. And so, sadly, I plow on. I’m building acoustic guitars now. Certain, I want you to know, that I’ll learn from all my mistakes.

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