Patina

 

I was 12.

 

That said, I had no idea who I was or who I was becoming. I certainly did not fit in any category I knew of. I loved heavy metal music, mustangs, and myths. I liked baseball as long as I was up to bat or playing catcher, but if you put me in the outfield, I watched planes flying over and forgot to pay attention. I did not want to be there.

I was fascinated by art. My friend, Terry, could draw anything, and it was always perfect. My perspectives weren’t good, so I just drew the same hotrod over and over. I learned how to draw flames coming out of the side-pipes. I put more flames on the fenders.

I was already playing guitar then, but I was looking for a fast track. I did not want to learn theory or sheet music; I wanted to make weird sounds with distortion pedals or overtaxed, tiny amps. The result was always something akin to the sound a whale would make if it had a cold. I did not follow any particular rule. I tuned my guitar with a tuner, and it did not sound any better as a result.

I wanted to write songs. I would listen to lyrics in songs and I thought I could do better. The first songs I wrote were attempts to make sentences out of the easier rhyming words. Sunday and Monday rhymed, so I put those words into the very first verse of my very first song. I was probably 6 then, but I am writing about the way things were when I was 12, and by then, I was writing hits like The Wizard Of Rock And Roll. Nobody ever heard it, but it was a huge hit in my mind. It was obviously about a real wizard who played in a band; it was a magic band too. He’d raise his guitar up high and lightning would… never mind.

I bought an electric guitar. It was a 1970s Aria, Stratocaster copy. The company ended up in a huge lawsuit over that guitar and others like it. Those guitars now belong to what is often referred to as “the lawsuit era,” and because of their closely matched styles and quality, they are actually very sought after. I still have mine and would not consider selling it.

While I had stopped playing baseball by my twelfth year, I still had my cool, dark green Twins cap. Maybe I still do.

 Everything seems to have built up to that point in my life. I did not think about it then, but it was the last VBS I ever attended. Vacation Bible School was actually very fun. We had a little class and some singing, but we then went out to play softball and other games too. After the games, we’d run in to get refreshments, which were always cream-filled vanilla cookies and Kool-Aid. With our red mustaches and sugar crashes, we’d play some kind of silly game before heading home.

 That year, for whatever reason, I wore my Twins cap very low. My bangs were in my eyes, and I reclined in my plastic chair until I was at a 45-degree angle. I was not trying to be cool; I was trying to be invisible. I did not want to talk to anyone, and I did not want to be asked to read. I had some trouble at home with my alcoholic father and I was feeling very rebellious. People tried to play with me or talk to me, and I just ignored them.

 Ida was there. Ida Mae. I sort of knew her from church, but I had never really talked to her. Her cousin, Shelly, was there too. I had never met Shelly.

 Shelly and I had something in common: we both had leather arm bracelets with our names on them. My coach had made mine. Coach Bergner. What a pleasant man he was. He was an inspiration. He is the one who put me in as catcher, and he really encouraged me. I remember how I connected a hit in one game, and he came over to me when I got to third and said, “You should have seen your dad when you hit that ball. He was behind the backstop, and he was grinning from ear to ear.”

 I didn’t know my dad had been there at the time, but I looked over and he was still there, looking at me, waiting for me to get home. It was the only game where I remember either parent actively watching me play ball.

 Later in that same game, I caught a pop-fly and tagged a guy at first, and then threw the ball to third to get the runner out on his return from home. I did all of that in one game, with my leather bracelet and my Twins cap on, with my dad watching.

Somehow, sitting there in my VBS classroom with that same attire on, I felt like I’d had a moment of fame and I was going to hang on to that game for a while.

 What I did not notice was that Shelly and Ida were trying to talk to me. And when Sister Rhonda asked me a question, I said, “I don’t know. I was not paying attention.”

 In a classroom with girls, I had somehow managed to get their attention, and I wasn’t even trying.

 And this may have been the trick, and I didn’t even do it on purpose. A rebellious punk with his brim pulled low, slouching in a chair and giving the teacher short answers—I was the man of the hour.

 I let that moment get by me, but it was nice to have Ida and Shelly giggling and coming around whenever we were outside.

 Late that year, on my first day of school, I looked up and there was Ida’s cousin in my class. I was still being an introvert, and she spoke first. We ended up exchanging bracelets, and for a while, I wore a bracelet that said Shelly on it. Hers said Mark. We were going together, and that’s how you could tell when two people were going together in 1979. I still don’t know what that means.

 Within days—maybe two weeks—I was given my bracelet back by a guy named Steve. “Give me Shelly’s bracelet,” Steve said. “We are going together.”

 I dropped my books on purpose. Steve thought I was ready to throw down, and he dropped his too. I just unsnapped the bracelet and handed it over. That was that.

 I didn’t care.

 I learned a lot about myself and about the law of attraction that year. I learned that if you try to draw attention to yourself, it never works, but if you try not to, it has the opposite effect.

 Later that year, I heard Dick Clark say, “If you want to be in style, look at the extremely rich and the extremely poor and dress like they dress. You have to carefully dress and carry yourself like you don’t care.”

 He explained that it is not enough not to care; you have to care, but appear not to in every way.

 At 12, I knew this was true.

Interestingly, I read something else that same year. It was a quote by Dale Carnegie:

 “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” ~ Dale Carnegie

 With my new set of rules, pretension was gone from the surface, but I kept it as a secret superpower. I have been very careful to try to look like I am not trying. It is not always easy.

 It’s when you clearcoat your life’s patina. Patina is the appearance of established character. Clearing over that part of your character is to preserve the natural effect of what life has done to you. 

 In 2006, when Seasick Steve got up on stage with his guitar made from scrap, he told people he was 65. He had a long white beard, and he played blues with his three-string guitar with the distortion cranked up. He had stories that matched his look, and he became an overnight sensation in the UK.

 Steve, at that time, was actually 55, and his stories? Probably embellished. But he did not care. At least he appeared not to. Seasick Steve got up on that stage and sang Dog House Boogie. It’s a song about how he has struggled for his entire life. Whether true or not, he is still selling out 20 years later.

 Everybody wants that patina.