One specific guitar caught his attention every time we walked past that downtown store.

It was a custom American electric guitar featuring a three-color sunburst finish, a smooth rosewood fretboard, and custom hand-wound pickups.

An independent luthier in Nashville had assembled it by hand, and the price tag on the wooden stand was staggering.

Twenty-one hundred dollars was an immense sum of money for working-class parents like Owen and me.

Owen climbed utility poles for the local cooperative, and I spent my weekdays cleaning teeth at a family dental clinic on Fourth Street.

We owned a modest three-bedroom ranch house with a monthly mortgage, two aging vehicle payments, and a golden retriever that needed expensive joint medicine.