Christmas at OK Guitars, Redux
No visions of sugarplums dancing in this head. Just waiting for Old St. Nick at OK Guitars.
I never re-run posts and I was going to write another Christmas post and try to be clever and make you all smile. Just for laughs, I pulled up the poem my wife and I wrote while on vacation in Mexico back in 2015. Well, no trip to Mexico this year and maybe I’m less creative in the cold and the snow, so I’m not going to write another Christmas post because this one says what needs to be said (and my very creative wife helped me-or maybe I helped her). So, here’s my first ever re-run. I promise, I’ll write a new Christmas poem next year.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the pad
I was playing my Gibson- not great, but not bad.
I remembered a blues lick and played it with flair
Just like in the days when I had all my hair.
The block necks were hung not too tight or too loose,
As I waited for Santa inside my caboose.
I had them all tuned and I played every one.
The truss rods were perfect, the strings tightly strung.
All of a sudden on the roof of my shop,
I spied an old fat dude just reeking of pot.
He fell off the roof and into the snow.
I asked him right in. Why he came, I don’t know.
There was ice in his beard and mud on his boot,
And I thought only rock stars could wear such a suit.
He took down a red one, just like Eric C.
His fingers flew faster than old Alvin Lee.
It was wailing and screaming all over the town.
I could hear my Dad yelling, “Turn that damn thing down!”
Who knew this weird guy, such a flash with a pick
And a love of guitars, would be old Saint Nick?
I couldn’t believe all the sounds in my ear.
He said, “You get good working one day a year.”
Now Jimi, Now BB, Now John, George and Paul
Would bow to this master, the best of them all.
“You remember that Christmas back in ’63?
When you found a new six string left under your tree?
You started to doubt that I was the truth,
But my gift to you then was a link to your youth.
So for all of the years that would come in between,
Way deep down inside, you’d still feel like sixteen.”
He picked up some cases by Lifton and Stone,
Some old Kluson tuners and a worn out Fuzztone.
“Now, Charlie Gelber you must hear my pitch,
‘Cause this is my time and payback’s a bitch.
The 335 please, the red 59.
I gave you your first one, now this ax is mine”.
And quick as a flash it was stuffed in his sack,
And he waved a goodbye as he snuck out the back.
He jumped in his sled and sparked up a j,
Flew into the sky and was off on his way.
So if feeling sixteen is what sets you right,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
By Charlie and Victoria Gelber
With apologies to Clement Clark Moore
In case you can’t decide what to get yourself this Christmas, here’s the “A” rack at OK Guitars. Why is it called the “A” rack? Because all guitars whose serial numbers start with “A” a hung here (and a few that don’t)
Merry Christmas to all my fellow guitar fanatics!
Charlie, thanks for the fun Xmas poem! Happy Holidays to you, yours and all blog readers. Hopefully your festivities will include blasting a few tunes on your venerable ES thru a favorite old amp of the Fender, Marshall or Vox persuasion! RAB
Merry Christmas to you both. Love that blonde es335. Sigh.
Belated Merry Christmas to you, Charlie and all the blog readers! Looking forward to another great ES-Year in 2018!