Good Evening TXK
April is International Guitar Month which is something I never would have known had I never started playing guitar because it would not have interested me. How cool is it that there’s an entire month dedicated to an instrument?
The Guitar & Accessories Marketing Association (GAMA) and the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) founded International Guitar Day in 1987 to promote guitar sales around the world. A plucked four-string instrument was named a guitar in the fourteenth century in Spain.
When I was in middle school, I was often bullied for being different from a lot of the other guys in my school. I was, according to them, more “feminine” by nature and had absolutely zero interest in anything involving a ball. This made me an easy target for guys who felt like they had the right to box me in and label me because I wasn’t like them. Labeling others who are different from we are makes us feel more comfortable, and I got that, even then. That did not make things any easier, though.
I have done a ton of growing since those difficult times, thanks to the power of finding my true identity in Christ, but also thanks to the healing power of music. I have always loved music, just as many others do. But for me, music started as just being something I did just for fun. It wasn’t too deep. Music was nothing I really had to think too hard about. It was just enjoyable. I would spend hours upon hours sitting in front of the computer watching music videos that I was FAR too young to be watching, obsessed with Britney Spears, Sean Kingston, Avril Lavigne, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. They were people whose music I LOVED but didn’t necessarily contain too much depth.
The way I saw music completely changed one really bad day in seventh grade when I distinctly remember coming home from school super defeated from the name-calling and heavily churned rumor mill when I heard a song by P!nk entitled “Perfect.” The song is a big fat public service announcement that says your flaws, the little things others make you question about yourself, are ultimately what make you, as the song describes, “perfect!” This is the first moment I remember music actually making a palpable difference in my life. This was more than just a song about being at the club or being in love. It was speaking life into the darkness where, for me, light and hope did not exist.
This newfound light fascinated me. A simple three-minute audio recording can literally be the words your friends may not know how to say to you when they are trying their best to comfort you. It can be the escape you desperately need when your reality feels like it is closing in on you. I’m being dramatic now and this is the part where my mom would say, “Okay honey, land your plane.” So, consider my plane landed here.
Discovering my love for music that, in turn, healed me, made me discover something else… I have a pretty good singing voice. I have developed it and it has matured over time, but for a couple of years, my mom and brothers, unfortunately, had to hear me try way too hard in the car, squealing and squawking to songs on the radio. I think now they would say I am decent, at least. I wanted to use this voice of mine to sing things I didn’t know how to say. I then wanted to couple it with an instrument. That was when I found out that my brother’s dad had given him a white guitar that had been sitting in his closet for years, just collecting dust. I picked it up, strings all out of tune, and decided I wanted to give learning guitar a shot! That was January 2020. Fast forward two years into the future and you can now find me uploading amateur song covers on my Facebook, leading worship or just singing whatever my heart desires with that same guitar in hand. It is all thanks to the guys who bullied me, P!nk, the incredibly healing power of music and my brother’s dad for leaving behind that little white guitar. Happy International Guitar Month!
RANDOM THOUGHT…
Why can’t broccoli or green beans taste like Chick-Fil-A? Same taste, fewer calories? Life is so unfair.
LOCAL EVENTS
April 1-10
Four States Fair and Rodeo
Four States Fairgrounds, opens weekdays at 5 PM, 10 AM on Saturdays and 1 PM on Sundays
April 1
AMMP Motorsports Monster Truck Madness
Four States Fairgrounds, 6 PM
April 2
31st Annual Demolition Derby
Four States Fairgrounds, 7 PM
April 2
Big Jake’s BBQ Open Sporting Clays Tournament
Rocky Creek Outdoors, 8 AM
April 2
American Legion Razorbacks Golf Scramble
Texarkana Golf Ranch, Registration Time 8 AM, Tee Time 9 AM
April 3
Sunday Funday Opportunities, Inc. Fundraising Event
Crossties, 4 PM
April 7
Save Jane Event
The Texarkana Children’s Advocacy Center and CASA for Children Texarkana, taking a stand against child abuse.
Downtown Federal Courthouse/Post Office and Live streamed on CASA and CAC’s Facebook pages, 10 AM – 12 PM
April 23
Texarkana Symphony Orchestra’s “Dreaming Together”
with Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Martinez
The Perot Theatre, 7:30 PM
April 23
CASA Colorful 5K
Trinity Baptist Church, 8:30-11 AM
April 30
Boomtown Border City Steak Cookoff
Hosted by Dot’s Ace Hardware with over $3,000 in cash prizes at stake.
Dot’s Ace Hardware
LIVE BANDS
April 2
Tailgate Poets
Redbone Magic Brewing, 7 PM
April 2
T-Town 5
Four States Fairgrounds, 6 PM
April 8
Brandon Rhyder
67 Landing
April 9
T-Town 5
67 Landing, 7:30 PM
April 9
Relentless
Four States Fair and Rodeo, 6 PM
April 22
Kemosabe
Fat Jacks, 9 PM
For more events visit
