Re: Old Standby

[sawyer@xxxxxxx]

userID@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
 > what the heck-at that price: $8, l'll just buy another. 
 > 
 > Ted@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I thought the days of the $5 harp were long gone, but last summer I
found a Hohner "Hot Metal" harp in a bubble-wrap package hanging on a
peg board at Sam Goody Records priced at $5.95.  It has a plastic
comb.  I bought it, of course.  The cardboard backing of the packaging
had a drawing of a very young James Cotton, though his name was not
there to identify him.  The very fact that a mainstream record shop is
selling harmonicas is a social change of some importance, perhaps
comparable to the sound of James Cotton's harp in some mass TV
advertising (Pepsi, Timberland Shoes).  I haven't played this harp
enough to comment on it, because I quickly surrendered it to my 2
year-old son who loves to play along with Dad.

Recently, I stumbled onto a Marine Band cardboard case in a little
used drawer.  This drawer has emotional baggage associated with my own
father, who died 12 years ago.  In my childhood home this drawer was
the place where three pistols were kept, pistols which had been murder
weapons in murder trials in which my father had served as Clerk Of
Court.  I turned the box over and saw the price tag: $2.95.  Inside
was my Dad's Marine Band harp.  A little rusty but it played.  I put
it with my old Marine Band boxes where the price tags say $5.00.

	--Charlie