Last night, I was down at the Jack of the Wood, where I am many/most Thursdays for the bluegrass jam. For reasons that will become clear later, my dobro was in Boston, so I took Rose, the Henderson guitar, down there. I’m not a serious guitar player by any stretch, especially in that crowd, but I can hold my own on rhythm if all the guitar players on stage decide to take a simultaneous smoke/drink break (which is known to happen). Anyway, I saw Griff Martin up on the stage. Griff can pick the frets off anything with strings and he’s actually played Rose a few times when he was taking voice lessons from Lisa.

“Hey Griff – you wanna play the Henderson?” He bounced off the stage and put his mandolin in my guitar case. Then he went up and tore the place up with her. I’d never heard her played in a loud jam like that but she punched through beautifully.

Then the dreaded moment came when there were no guitarists up there. I went up with Rose and stood in back. I actually had more fun than I expected to and found that I was able to do a credible job as the (sole) guitarist. At some point, Greg “Stig” Stiglets, the bass player for Dehlia Low, was holding down the bass right next to me. Stig is an awesome bass player but an equally awesome guitar player.

“Stig, you wanna swap instruments?” “Sure.”

So he commenced to kicking the daylights out of Rose and she responded like a thoroughbred that got a tap on the haunch – it was a joy to listen to. After a couple of songs, Stig peered toward the headstock, which he couldn’t see, between the guitar cinched up against his chest and the bad light. “Whose guitar is this?” I simply pointed back to myself and smiled. “What kind is it…” peering further, “I can’t tell…”

“It’s a Henderson.”

Stig’s eyes widened. “I’ve never played a Henderson,” he said softly.

“Now you have; you sounded righteous.”

I think I will make an effort to take her down to the Jack more often. Even if I don’t play her, it’s not right that a guitar like that doesn’t get played, especially when there are such astonishing musicians around to play her.