I had a most magical and touching moment last weekend. My uncle (hitherto known as Uncle) was in town for an art conference here in the ATL. In spite of everyone’s busy schedules, we managed to get together for dinner. It was me, Uncle, Mom, Sister, Brother-in-Law, Niece, Nephew, and Uncle’s GF (Rachel).  We sat at Holy Taco in East Atlanta Village and laughed and tried to keep the kiddos from destroying the entire patio (there were definitely some close calls). Any time guacamole is involved, my family can chill out just a little. That shit is basically like cat nip (I can never remember if cat nip makes cats go crazy or chills them out…let’s go with chill out). 

Towards the end of the meal, Uncle turns to me and says, “Hey I have something for you in the car.” I got nervous as this could go one of many ways. My uncle is an artist, so I thought maybe he was giving me one of his pieces. My heart, eyes, and walls are always open to art. Currently three of his prints hang in my bedroom. This would be a little odd, though, seeing as my mom and sister were sitting right there and he didn’t offer them art. They’re being offered nothing from the car. No car art for you!

Knowing my uncle, he could have just as easily handed me a civil war pistol that my great-great-great-grandpa used in the Union army or whatever. Or maybe he was giving me immigration papers from some distant relative who came over from Germany and/or Russia (my ancestors weren’t completely forthright about their origins). As I sit there finishing up my 13^thcup of guac nip, those three possibilities through my head: art, old gun, German and/or Russian paperwork.

Once our meal is concluded, the little monsters (my niece and nephew) head home, and I head to Uncle’s car with Mom and Rachel. In classic Uncle fashion, he opens the door and unceremoniously hands me a dusty guitar that has only one string. “Here you go. It’s your dad’s old guitar.” I was a little confused as I took ahold of the thing. 1) I didn’t know dad had a guitar. 2) I didn’t know why it only had one string. 3) I didn’t know why I was now holding it. Uncle looked at me as though we had been talking about this guitar for the last 6 months, complete with pie charts and a PowerPoint presentation. 

“Rachel told me you would like to have it. If she had given me more notice, I would have restrung it and tuned it myself. Anyway, here ya go,” he said with mild annoyance in his voice. 

Now for those of you who know me well, you know I don’t forget things, specifically conversations. I’m like an elephant…if elephants remember conversations well. If we talk about something, I’ll be able to recall completely obscure facts years later from that conversation. I’ll remember that you have a brother named Tom who lives in Albuquerque and raced in the Tour de France in the late 90s. I’ll randomly bust that out and leave you completely dumbfounded. My powers are both shocking and mighty. I don’t know why I have this ability. More importantly, I don’t know why I haven’t monetized this ability. 

For the life of me, though, I cannot remember having this conversation with Rachel and/or Uncle. I truly have zero recollection of it. There’s no elephanting here. According to the two of them, the topic of the guitar came up a few months ago. I guess they were clearing out their place, wondering what to do with it, and I said I would love to have it. It all sounds very plausible. Very plausible indeed though it rings no bells for me. 

As Uncle and Rachel were leaving to head to Atlanta, Rachel calls out to him at the last second to bring the guitar along. Hearing them describe it, I can picture the moment perfectly. Uncle is locking up the house, ready to go, and Rachel beckons for one last thing. She’s from Romania and has this gorgeous accent. He’s from Wisconsin and sounds…like he’s from Wisconsin. Uncle was Midwestern annoyed; Rachel was Romanian persuasive. I know he was pissed because in addition to one last thing, he would’ve rather given me a guitar that had all 3 strings (that’s how many a guitar has right?…right?!). Had he known in advance, he would have restrung and tuned it himself for me. 

Anyway, there we are standing outside Holy Taco. Uncle and Rachel tell me all this as I look down at the dusty guitar and confusedly go through my Rolodex of conversations only to find that I have no memory of this. I let go of the confusion and just embrace the moment. I hug Uncle and Rachel and thank them for the guitar. As I walk home, I get more and more excited by this whole thing. It strikes a chord within me (I couldn’t resist #sorrynotsorry). 

My uncle is one of the last living connections I have to my dad. They’re only a few years apart in age and, as such, have this shared history. Uncle knows all the childhood stories. He has a deep sense of family legacy, lineage, and lore. Remember how I thought he might randomly give me a Civil War gun? Uncle is one of the last strongholds protecting that part of my family tree. Whenever we’re regaled with stories of their childhood (even if I’ve heard it 13,596 times), I feel a vibration in the connective tissue between me and Dad. It’s comfort. So the fact that Uncle, specifically, was giving me dad’s old guitar meant a lot. 

The story behind the guitar itself, however, is hilariously and perfectly non-precious and classically Donohue. Uncle filled me in on the specifics. Dad’s musical history is as follows: as a youngster he picked up the trumpet because his Uncle Jerry played it and was amazing. [Side note: my Great-Uncle Jerry played Taps for every military funeral in Milwaukee for like 40 years.] It turns out that Dad didn’t like the trumpet. He still wanted to play a horn, so he tried his hand at the trombone. Thus began a life-long love affair. 

My dad loved that damn trombone. Throughout my childhood, he’d go through periods of obsession and neglect with the instrument. For two months he’d play every day and then he’d put it down for a few weeks. Our house in St. Louis was about 1750 square feet, so regardless of where you were when dad played, he’d be playing directly inside your ear hole. There was no hiding. The only reprieve would be when he cleared out the spittle that collected in the bottom of the slide (a thought that still makes me gag). It was like in Mary Poppins when Admiral Boom fires his cannon from the roof next door. There was no escaping it. All you could do was hold down the breakables and try to ride it out. 

The only thing worse than a good, loud trombone solo is a bad, loud trombone solo. And the only thing worse than a bad, loud trombone solo is one that lasts for two hours. As much as it pains me to say it, Dad only knew one way to play that instrument and that was poorly. The man was quite terrible at it. He’d work on the same line of music over and over again and every time it was a little different. His pitch wasn’t consistent. His tempo was all over the place. Every time he played a B-Flat, it seemed to be a distant cousin of the B-Flat he played 30 seconds earlier. It was not good. Full disclosure: I don’t know what good trombone playing sounds like but I’m almost positive that Dad wasn’t doing it. 

Looking back, there’s much to admire about Dad and his trombone. Namely just how much he loved it, how much joy he derived from it, in spite of what appeared to be a complete lack of ability to play the damn thing. It was his time to create. I’d like to believe that whenever my dad, the chemist, picked up the ‘bone he saw himself onstage with Count Basie or Dizzy Gillespie. Maybe he saw himself jamming with the guys, one of the cool kids. In those moments he wasn’t nerdy Jeff Donohue, laden down with kids and a wife and a mortgage and a 9-to-5 job inside a windowless laboratory. He was Jeff “Big J” Donohue, taking sips of his bourbon and ginger in between sets onstage at a smoky club. Maybe I’m putting thoughts into his head, but it makes for a more colorful story. In any case, the man had a stubbornly impenetrable love for the trombone that was completely unrelated to the quality of his playing.

So…

Back to the guitar. 

We were still living in St. Louis when my uncle came for a visit one year. The drive from South Carolina to Missouri is a long one so it was a big deal when he’d come to town. Dad was deep in a trombone wave when Uncle showed up. Dad visited with his brother for a bit and then went up to his room to blow on his bone for a while. Uncle was horrified. He looked around at me, mom, and my sisters. His eyes communicated, “Surely Jeff is having a psychotic break. Why would he be playing the trombone that way?!” We just shrugged our shoulders and went about our business. It was par for the course. For Uncle, it left a lasting impression. 

Next time he strolled through St. Louis, which seemed to be a little sooner than normal, he brought with him a guitar. Uncle had always played and was pretty good at it. His style was more late-night-strummer than rock-out-with-a-band. The particular guitar he brought with him was a gift for dad. Silently, rejoicingly, the rest of my family sent up prayers of gratitude for the gesture. Think of the money we would save on earplugs if Dad fell for the guitar the way he fell for the trombone. As far as I was concerned, I would much prefer to hear terrible guitar playing than the very best trombone playing. Call me an asshole. 

Dad graciously received the gift, thanking his brother for the gesture. He even politely allowed Uncle to teach him a chord or two. Dad gently set the guitar down, made a beeline for the stairs, then went to go blow on his bone for a few hours. His fingers never strummed those strings again. 

Somewhere in there, the guitar returned to my Uncle. My guess is that it happened during our move to Atlanta. Mom probably realized the dream of Dad switching to the guitar was never going to happen and we needed to cut our losses. If not, the poor thing would have to travel 500 miles south to never be played. That seemed a sorry existence for an instrument whose only offense was being placed into the hands of one betrothed to another. Thus “Dad’s Guitar, aka One String Sally, aka Mission Failed” went back to Uncle and eventually circled back to me years later in front of Holy Taco. 

That dusty, one-stringed, neglected instrument makes me tremendously happy. I giggle at the thought of it. Its history makes me think of Dad in all the best ways. It’s a symbol of how he carried himself through life. He was delusionally attached to his dreams regardless of the reality that lay before him. Of course Jeff showed up engaged, present, and responsible in his real life. But in the far recesses of his mind, he was Big J, the bourbon-drinking, day-sailing, cool kid who smoked cigars, always landed the punchline, and could play ever-living hell out of the trombone. He always had a little mischievous spark in his eye. I think that spark was Big J. 

So when I’m strumming away on One String Sally, completely unable to produce a decent sound out of the contraption, I hope I can channel just a sliver of Big J. I hope to strum away in spite of myself. Come to think of it, I kinda hope that for everyone. 

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