Michael Gurian and The 92nd Street Y

I was working as an assistant buyer for National Shirt Shops. It was 1969 or it was late 1969 on the way to a nearby 1970.  I was married and had been married for close to two years. I was 21. She was 21. We got married young. We got married, perhaps, too soon. There is no way to determine that. Back then in the pre-internet/Google/Search Engine/List Serv/email/smart ass phone age you found out about things by referencing a piece of paper. This piece of paper could take the form of a flyer which was a single sheet of paper or a sign or a newspaper of some sort. Sometimes you found out about things because someone told you. Sometimes you would pass a place and there would be a sign outside announcing something of some sort. Through the graces of one of these methods of archaic communication I found out about a course in guitar construction. It was to be taught by someone named Michael Gurian. At this point the Guitar cognoscenti reading this are supposed to say, “Ooooooo Michael Gurian!!!” (For those of you who are not saying Oooooooo please go to Google and Google his name.) Wait…I’ll make it easy….here:

http://www.vintagemandolin.com/gurian/gurian.html

The classes were taught at the 92^nd Street Y in Manhattan. That’s YMHA for clarity.  I remember the streets around the Y in the evening when I went to the classes. I remember the sun in the mornings when I traveled into the city from Long Island to take classes. I remember making the metal outline for the top of the guitar. I remember driving to the Bronx with Melissa next to me to purchase tools at Constantine on 2050 Eastchester Rd. I remember that day clearly. The quality of the bright sun and the green of the trees as we drove through some park. I can remember buying my planes and files.

She was so interested in what I was doing. It was fun. Around the same time I was offered a job at a company in semi-rural Pennsylvania. It was a great deal more money and it was near her Aunt and Grandmother who BOTH taught at Bryn Mawr College. I took the job and left the classes of Michael Gurian who went on to build wonderful, wonderful guitars. I still had the template for the guitar tops then. I had it for years but I don’t have it now. I don’t have the planes or the files. I also don’t have Melissa.  That was my wife’s name.

So now I collect guitars. I play guitars and, of course, I want to build guitars.  I wish I had finished the class. It might have altered my life profoundly. It would have. Not that I would time machine my way back there if I was science fictioned in some incomprehensible way. My life is good now, Really. But, still, I might have built some splendid guitars in my workshop with the trees in the backyard and a few kids and dogs and a stream I would hope and…well….and.