A BIG DAY

He's no Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton...yet. And he probably barely knows who those two guys are anyway.

But today, my 15-year-old son took one step closer to world fame when we went out and bought him his first electric guitar, which he is partly paying for.

Like any young teenage guy, my son's a dork. I love him incredibly, and he's got girls crawling all over him, but he's a dork. And he knows it. I remind him of this all the time. And now he's going to complicate things.

He's the lead singer in a band with a name that changes every week, and now he's decided that he may not continue singing, but he might just play guitar and do backup vocals for a lead singer his band doesn't have yet.

So all that money I spent on singing lessons, apparently, will now be transferred over to guitar lessons. "That's OK, Dad, I'm taking choral at school, it's just like singing lessons."

Right.



It's a nice guitar...an Ibanez, whatever that means in the world of guitars, not the top of the line, but he's just starting out. With the amplifier (which his bandmates and friends loved) and all the other accessories, it cost a pretty penny.

The guitar is all black, the amp's all black, the leather guitar strap is all black, and my pocketbook is in the red. How does that work?

I played it a bit myself...it does sound pretty good. Part of it is a gift from me, but part of it he'll have to pay for himself, plus interest, every month, just like an adult.

So he gets something he claims he absolutely wants, but at a cost that requires responsibility.

I have not yet directed him to the Rolling Stones song, You Can't Always Get What You Want.

Maybe he'll discover that one on his own.

After playing with his buddies all night, he wanted to show me how it sounded when he got home. But he was very tired and went to bed soon after.

He's a kid with big, if ever-changing, dreams. This may be just another one of those. I'm glad he went to bed full of them.