Little Chute Wi. s
It was seven years since I saw my half sister Amanda. One day, I got in touch with her over the phone and we were reunited. She told me she lived in Little Chute WI. And that she had two kids and a husband now. She said that she really wanted to see me and meet my girlfriend Leah Ann, and just hangout again like we used to. I agreed. But it seemed really far away, and we were both so busy. so we never made the plans. It wasn't until after my girlfriend made arrangements for us to go see a concert in Milwaukee, that I realized how close we would be to Little Chute! I called my sister and we marked it on the calender.
I remember being out to see Bush, Chevelle, and Filter play at the Rave. I consider it to be my first "real" concert. It was truly an awesome experience! We stayed at a hotel in Milwaukee after the concert and the next morning left for Little Chute. I was so distracted by the good time that I was having, and the sites to see on the drive, that I forgot to even think about what I might talk about with my sister or her husband who I had never met.
Finally, we arrive... I called my sister and told her that we where in Little Chute and needed final directions on how to find her house. She told us how to get there and we pulled up in a matter of minutes. Amanda greeted us out in her front yard. I was so nervous and excited! We greeted, laughed at nothing for a second, and she took us around to the garage to meet Jake.
We ducked our heads to walk under an old white, dented up half opened garage door, and peered into the dimly lit mess of bad ass car parts surrounding a bad ass car. Under the hood of the car stood one of the biggest, meanest looking guys I had ever seen. "Jake this is my brother Ben and his girlfriend Leah Ann." Jake didn't even look up. "Hey...." I felt awkward and anxious. I needed to hear words, so I just started in, "Hey man this is a real nice car! Look at all this stuff! Dude your a big guy! I bet you could be a bouncer or sumthin!?" He looked up for a second and chuckled a little, " Yeah...." Then Amanda Chirped up, "" Hey are we still having Kal and the others over tonight?" He said yes and we went inside.
We caught up a bit and went into the living room so Jake could put on some music and show us his pistols and MMA pictures. Then Amanda and Jake had their friends come over. We all decided to get some beer and go out in the back yard to gather around a fire pit and socialize. It was at least an hour of them talking to each other and catching up with each other. They were big strong people with strong attitude and strong interest in cars, drinking, and fighting. I was running out of material to talk about and things started to get awkward again. Small talk was going nowhere, and Being that My girlfriend and I were the only new thing for them, attention became directed at us. ..I'm not real into cars, I don't like fighting, and I am not a big drinker with a bunch of relevant inside jokes and bar stories. So conversation began to grind to a halt. Then Amanda came back outside with more people and more beer. She must have picked up on the thick air of awkward silence surrounding that fire and made an attempt at breaking it. " Ben, do you still play guitar? Because Jake has this old acoustic upstairs!" "Jake can he play it?" Jake looks me and says "Yeah if he can, that thing is from the 60's and hasn't had the strings changed in at least 15 years!." They all looked at me, and after a lot of laughing and hesitation on my part, She went in to get it.
It was unreal. The amount of age that this thing had was incredible. It had no distinguishing marks or indications as to what kind of acoustic it was. The strings where rusted and dusty. As I tuned them into an understandably low drop E tuning, I held my head back as far as it would go, half expecting the strings to snap back lacerating my jugular and causing me to bleed out! Finally, the high E Done. I made a bar chord and strummed the guitar. I looked at Leah Ann, She nodded in approval and made a big smile. I looked around the fire at the growing group of people, all staring and waiting.... " So what do you guys wanna hear?"
