Do you want to play the banjo?
I play a number of instruments. I play guitar, harmonica, and fiddle. I can play mandolin and piano a little and played trumpet in Junior High School. I’ve dabbled with saxophone, viola, and string bass. I also play a number of strange noisemaking devices as music, like shower hose, jew’s harp, and kazoo.
Though I might have tried to learn, there is one instrument that I will never play: the banjo. And this is why.
I was about 35 years old when I read an article in the paper that offered free lessons on how to play the banjo. All I had to do was go to this address, and I would be provided with a banjo on this particular date and time, and I would not only be given a banjo to keep but would be able to play and perform with it that very same day.
This looked too good to be true, but I figured why not. What could I lose? And banjo was on my list of instruments I wanted to play.
I booted up my Apple //e computer, and since I had just purchased a 56K modem, I could connect to this new thing called the World Wide Web. I quickly logged in to my Applelink Personal Edition account and tried to find out about the organization sponsoring this offer.
Back then, at 56K, one did not find information so easily. It took over an hour to discover that the information I was looking for was not to be found.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to go anyway. I got on the Long Island Railroad train and took off to the place mentioned in the article. I don’t remember exactly where it was, but when I got there, I found there was a big circus tent in the middle of this field. As I entered the circus tent, several other people were waiting in line to talk to the ringmaster (who was the one mentioned in the article) about learning how to play the banjo.
After a rather quick interview, ten of us were chosen. I was the tenth. I felt honored.
That was until I was handed a banjo, had to put on a clown’s costume, and was thrown out into the center ring with the other 9 players and told to play. There were no instructions, and the cacophony noise produced by us brought much laughter to the hundreds of people that were in the audience, especially when the ringmaster let loose the elephants that started chasing us all around the ring. It was my worst nightmare come true.
The elephants were gotten control of finally as the ten of us rushed off center stage and left the tent.
We were thanked for our service outside the tent and given our clothes back. We were told we could keep the banjos. And that was it. They didn’t even give us tickets so that we could see the rest of the circus performance.
When I got home, I was still shaking and felt pretty dejected.
The banjo is still somewhere buried in my attic, never to be looked at again. Just the thought of it makes me shudder, which is why I never intend to learn how to play one. I’m also not too fond of elephants anymore either.
