Calling All Guitar Pickers

[DebiCates]

Remember how the sight and sounds of a guitar was part of everyday life at BHS? Seems everyone could pick out a little something on the box, and seems like always someone somewhere was strumming away on one.

What did you pick when you picked up a guitar?

Me (I only knew starts):

• The start of the House of the Rising Sun ("there is a house in New Orleans...")
• The start of Here Comes the Sun ("Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter")
• The start of Lay, Lady, Lay ("Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed")

You?

[Ahmed_Alshami]

I agree Debi. I too loved listening to some Bhs boys play the guitar in the 70's. They were pretty good. I for one, learnt to play the 1st few notes of "Smoke On The Water" by Deep Purple, when borrowing Yahia Hamidaldines' guitar. My ambition however never went further than that; A few notes and that was it.

When we were experimenting with guitars, I cant help but notice now that calculators had not yet been introduced into our classrooms ; We actually memorized those darn logarithms and algebraic formulas!
Disposable cigarette lighters were also practically unheard of; We loved the smell of those match fumes.
Strange as it may sound, I don’t even remember Scands serving us any hamburgers or fries!
Believe it or not,we didnt drink our coca cola and crush in cans , we only drank them in bottles.
Most of us spoke Arabic in a spontaneous Lebanese accent, as well as tone of voice; I find it extremely nostalgic and entertaining now when I do.
Looking at all the electronic gadgets kids have at their disposal today, we only had….Shoot! I don’t remember any!.. A transistor radio or tape recorder perhaps? Ofcourse the fortunate among us had a guitar.
Can anyone come up with more things we take for granted today, that we never had yesterday at Bhs?

[Sarmad]

Speaking as a guitar player, I thoroughly loved the instrument. I joined the guitar club initially, and then progressed to be tutored by Peter Coleridge to play classical guitar to fulfil a D of E Award requirement. What wonderful times. Someone even reminded me of a recital I gave at Little House one evening, something that I'd long forgotten. I think that was Debi. I plucked at House of the Rising Sun, Seasons in the Sun, Sunshine on My Shoulders... anything with "sun" in it it seemed. It's only recently that I had the nails on my right hand trimmed. I never owned my own guitar. I "permanently" borrowed one of the Coleridges guitars.

I never owned any gadgets either, just an old beaten-up camera my father bought me as a kid, and an old transister radio I used walk around with attached to my ear, and I used to put under my pillow at night. Kids now have their own mobile phones complete with cameras and radios which they insist to have changed whenever a new model comes out. I used to hire a bicycle from a shop near the orphanage for an hour at the weekend to run around in. School kids now have their own cars and beach buggies.

I don't think I would have ever eaten any hamburgers from Scands even if he made them. It was enough to be hooked on the chicken sandwiches, and the pancakes he used to make. I still haven't tasted better tasting chicken sandwiches anywhere in the world. And ahhh... the coke bottles. I associate them with flippers, babyfoot, and a Marmelade song that was popular then, can't remember the name of the song though. And then there was the "Royal Gardens"!!!

[DebiCates]

Ahmed_Alshami said:

Can anyone come up with more things we take for granted today, that we never had yesterday at Bhs?

Word processing! Never dreamt of at BHS. I remember I had a report due (Mr. Coleridge's class, I'm sure) on the Postal system of Lebanon. Nilus De Matran was my essay partner. I drew the short straw and had to type it on a MANUAL TYPEWRITER. After several days of a gazillion mistakes, and a can full of crumpled discards, I learned that Sammy Nagem could touch type. He tapped it out in a few hours and saved the day. And probably a few trees, too.

[Loser]

How about cell phones and SMS?

Making or receiving calls, specially international ones, was such a big deal (remember arguing with one of the Kanaan brothers about how long you were on the phone for?)

Now my daughter calls me during English class in her boarding school half way across the world in Florida to tell me how boring it is!!