a bass string with gasoline

Whenever asked if I am a musician, I always reply the same way: “No, I’m a bass player. I do sing, if that counts.”
I bring this up as the moment of truth arose last Tuesday. Time for new bass strings. No more boiling the old ones. A store actually had some decent strings on sale for less than $20.00. SOLD!
It’s like playing a whole new instrument. I cannot even remember the last time I bought new strings. I did, of course, save the old ones and they will eventually join the dozens of other dead, yet loyal sets of round-wound steel.
During a conversation with a fellow bassist the other night, he told me a story of giving an old string to a friend who was making a necklace and needed an eye hook to join the two ends together. Thus the string lived on by giving life to a piece of jewelry that was obviously created someplace where there are no hobby stores.
Anyway, my mind reeled itself back to the late 80s when I had just finished a gig in Fort Worth at a place called The Hop (an acronym for House of Pizza). They really did have pretty decent pizza there, but I am getting way off the plot.
It was about 3:00 in the morning or so and we had loaded the equipment. I jumped into my van, turned the ignition switch and pumped the accelerator pedal, which just stuck to the floor. I loudly spoke words that I will not print in this space. Broken cable.
I was not about to leave a vehicle stuffed with musical equipment in front of a bar all night. Fortunately, a guitarist and friend of mine decided to put in his two cents worth of advice and suggested that I remove a bass string and run it through the place where the cable hooks to the pedal and wrap the other end around my hand.
I drove that van in the fashion one usually thinks of driving a fishing boat for at least a week until another gig came around and I could afford to have it fixed.
Just a thought for whenever the time comes around to buy new strings for the faithful low-ender. You just never know when the things can come in handy.
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