It started as a guitar shop, but it has evolved into a home for refugee cats and lots of stuff. It's an old house that was built sometime in the 1920s - just a little place of about a thousand square feet. Someone added a room to the back later on, and that became home to my building tools. I turned the rest of the place into a showroom for musical instruments, more space for working on guitars, an office, and a small den for just hanging out. And, it's got a kitchen and bathroom. I keep things there like vintage guitars, mandolins, fiddles, accordions, old cameras and movie equipment, and some old audio equipment. It is also home to most of my cowboy collectibles - hats, chaps, boots, even a saddle and old rope. Not many people get inside the Line Camp, but those who do say it's more like a museum than anything else.
And that's where Lionell, Urkle, Muffin, Lulu, Pekabo, and Yoda live - cats. Good cats that don't destroy my stuff and get well taken care of. I go there twice a day to feed them, and I spend some time each day playing with them. Outside the Line Camp is more stuff - a flat bed trailer with lots of trash piled up on it, an old boat and motor, and a little SUV I bought back in 1984 . . . and some benches for working outside . . . and more cats. Yeah, there's Big Mama, Ruty, Tinker, Toby, two full time kittens (Gidget and Gizmo), and four other kittens that show up most days. Oh, yeah, and one chihuahua dog that mooches treats most days. The Line Camp is therefore a cat rescue area. Not that I need more cats. I've got a dozen of them here at home, but they're big time spoiled cats and not like my cats across town.
It's hard to work on a guitar with a half dozen cats all over you. Maybe you've noticed, but cats are curious critters, and these cats are only 7 months old. I've got an older computer over there (still one of my favorites), but it's hard to write there for the same reason. Once it gets colder outside, I'll take my laptop over there and work some (when I'm not in the shop working on guitars). That's my domain, a place where everything is done the way I want it. No woman to deal with there, no demands and no restraints. Here at home, I'm under zoning restrictions when it comes to rooms. I've got an office and a music room, and she's got the rest of the house. I'm not complaining. She puts up with me and my animal friends, and that's a biggie 'cause I'm a pain in the ass most of the time. Actually, some of the cats here started life at the Line Camp. And my son in Austin has four cats that came from the Line Camp.
I can build almost anything out of wood, not just guitars. I've loved wood since I was just a small boy, and I can't remember a time when I didn't have a hammer, saw, and other tools to work with wood. I've built furniture, cabinets, and even a few houses. And I've been in love with guitars for a very long time. I learned guitar making by reading and asking lots of questions, and my guitars are usually good instruments. I once had ambitions of making money building guitars but gave up on that in a hurry. Dealing with the demands of a buying public is irritating, even depressing, so I gave that up in favor of building guitars to keep. I've given away quite a few, but most of them are right where they belong - either here at my house or at the Line Camp.
I build guitars for the same reason I write books. I enjoy it. In fact, without those two things, I'd have no interest in staying alive. I'm old and time is short for me now, but I've still got work to do. I want to have twenty books in print before I die (just got 7 now), and I want to leave behind at least 100 guitars. My son is a guitar enthusiast, so he'll probably reap the harvest of guitars when I'm gone. I tell people that I make guitars to last for a long time, maybe centuries if they're cared for. The books I put in print might last longer than that. My grandfather left me an old shotgun and a gold pocket watch, and I treasure both of them. But what I treasure most about people is the memory of them, and having something they gave me jogs the memory. I'll post some pictures of the Line Camp later on.
No comments:
Post a Comment