ASA Adventist Society for the Arts
My name is Gene Stewart, and I found this old guitar lying underneath a huge pile of debris in a neighbor’s yard in 1985. The guitar really did belong in the trash as it had been thoroughly abused. All of its hardware had been removed (the tuners, bridge, and nut), and it had been hit hard enough to dislodge a portion of the sound board (the top of the guitar) from the body of the guitar. There was a hole in the neck that appeared to be left by a bullet passing thru and gouging our a hole all the way thru to the truss rod. There was paint sprayed all over the body of the guitar, and as if that was not enough the guitar had be lying under the debris pile for several days out doors and birds had been roosting there so the guitar was covered with bird droppings.
So, as you can imagine, my wife was not exactly thrilled when I arrived at our house with this new treasure I was going to restore. I spent about 2 weeks tinkering with it to bring it back to the point where it could be played, and shortly after that I was inspired to write a song titled, “This Old Guitar.” It was, in fact, the first song I had ever written. Now, looking back, that was 34 years ago, and since then, quite a few other songs have arrived to keep it company.
Thru the years I have been blessed to be able to use the guitar and its story to inspire others.
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