Melinda

I was riding in the rear of a Union Pacific business car between Denver and Minneapolis, enjoying the scenery and playing my dulcimer, when a crazy little Jewish woman named Leslie asked me a pretty good question. What was my dulcimer's name? I didn't have an answer.

Most dulcimer players I knew, after their first student dulcimer, had picked out a special dulcimer for a long term relationship and soon given it a name. I should have said, given her a name, because I've only heard women's names given to dulcimers. It may be the majority of dulcimer players I've met are men.

Of course, I say majority are men but there are many, many women dulcimer players. They might even actually be the majority. It's just that I haven't asked their dulcimer's name. My bad.

In fact, it was a 13 year girl, named Cathy Morrison, that got me into dulcimers. I had attended a couple of Friday night music get togethers at Lonnie Lee's house in Fox, Arkansas. I was 16 years old and played guitar and mandolin, trying to keep up with the old-timers. The first time I saw her, she had a dulcimer in her lap, playing Barbara Allen along with the everyone else. I was just trying to keep up with the right chord changes and not doing a bang-up job of it. Cathy was wearing a colorful patchwork quilt dress that went down to her ankles and a white long-sleeve blouse with just a minimum of lace at the neckline. I thought I was in love.

She was married off to a 40 year old local farmer, who had quite a bit of acreage, before I got back to my parents' cabin in Fox the next summer. I didn't have a shot at all.

It did get me interested in playing dulcimer and a few years later I owned my first one. I have been playing ever since. In fact, I turned on a couple of my high school buddies to dulcimers and they are still playing to this day. I didn't name my first dulcimer either.

About 12 years ago I was in McSpadden's Dulcimer Shop in Mountain View, looking at dulcimers. Nothing caught my fancy. I wasn't really in the market for one and I really didn't have the money either. One of the clerks saw me monkeying with several instruments. I guess I was frowning at the results of my strumming. He came over and asked if I'd like to try out one of the dulcimers from behind the counter.

It felt like I was like buying a Rolex watch just off of Times Square. He looked around before he pulled one out and said, "Why don't you try out this baby for size." The way he talked about it in hushed tones, I got the impression he didn't show these to just any tourist walking into the store. They probably didn't. The ones on the display wall were pretty beat up. Tourists! They're messing it up for everybody. Especially the Yankee ones.

The moment I touched her, before I even strummed the first chord, I knew I had to have her. She was of matched dark walnut construction of the box, shapely and lovely in the classic hourglass design. She had a rosewood fretboard and rounded edge brass frets, a small ivory bridge and mother of pearl inlaid markers in the traditional style. Her polished chrome keys where like a woman's earrings and had matching pairs of heart shaped sound holes at lower waist and upper body. What was not to love at first sight?

The first note she produced for me was not a disappointment despite my anticipation. It was sweet nectar to the ear. The easiest touch of the strings to frets solidly held the notes. My hands and fingertips glided easily up and down her body. The harmonics came with just the lightest brush of her strings at just the right points.

I had to take her with me. I had no emotional detachment in which to negotiate a price. She was $430 before tax, retail. I paid it quickly in case the sales clerk saw my anxiousness and raised the price. Which I knew would have payed, whatever it was.

So, it comes back to this: I really didn't have an answer for why I hadn't named her. After all this time it seemed pointless. If a name doesn't come to you in the first week or so, it's not gonna happen. Or, so I thought.

I showed Leslie a little bit of music on the dulcimer. She sang a few tunes to which I roughly accompanied her. She has a most beautiful voice. However, I was getting a drowsy from the gentle rocking of the train and drifted off while Leslie strummed a few tunes herself on my dulcimer.

I was asleep only a few minutes but, I'd had an awfully long and detailed dream. I woke and announced that my dulcimer's name was Melinda. And, that she asked me why I'd never asked her what her name was? Apparently we had been acquainted for quite some time before I acquired her at McSpadden's. Leslie just looked at me with astonished face with her mouth wide open, "All that in a 5 minute nap?"

Out of that dream came some answers. Also, the entire story of our long relationship. A melody and words rushed around in my mind. I had this entire song, except for a few minor details, as soon as I woke. I wrote the words down and worked out the music that night with Melinda.

Here it is:


Melinda

I had a dream; I was about ten years old.
When it all happened, I really don’t know.
I met a girl, such a girl and we became friends.

She skipped off, with her daddy in tow.
Glanced over her shoulder and then dropped her bow.
I’m in heaven, in heaven, that she’d even look at me.

Chorus:
She smiles at me and I can’t see –
anyone else. It’s love to me.
Her voice is so sweet: I don’t hear the words.
Her voice is so sweet: I can't hear the words.

I grew old, had fights with the kin.
Died in battle and paid for my sins.
I was lost. I was lost and wasted much of my soul.

A hundred years later I had a blood on my face.
She was a nurse, took me in - kept me safe.
I was evil, almost evil. ‘though married, she made me well.

Chorus

Then I was a horse, seventeen high.
She was my mistress and together we’d ride.
Everyday. Everyday. All of that redemptive life.

Chorus

As a tree she grew, for a very long time.
A musician cut her down, to make a very fine –
dulcimer for someone. For someone like me.

Chorus

She in my lap on the back of a train.
“My name’s Melinda. Why have you never asked my name?”
Melinda, oh Melinda, it’s your voice, your sweet voice,
not your words, that have kept me sane (and)

Chorus

She smiles at me and I can’t see –
anyone else. It’s love to me.
Her voice is so sweet: I don’t hear the words.
Her voice is so sweet.