#martin

It was in late March that I found myself among the disinfectant smells and cracked tiles of an oncology clinic in western New York. This was the clinic where TTAC contributor and long-time member of the B&B, David Drucker, lost his fight with cancer. This was the clinic where he faced his final shots at chemo, the poison burning his arm, the duct-taped old vinyl recliners in a row, the enforced stillness that must have been agonizing for a man whose quick fingers on the guitar and brilliant singing voice entertained everyone he met. In these dismal corridors, in the long walk from the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, in the elevator that creaked and groaned on the way up to the third floor. I didn’t get there in time. I arrived in western New York to find him already gone, his passing announced without fanfare by his son on Facebook along with a link to a video of his last public folk-music performance. It would have been the first time I met him in person; I’d “known” him for years through TTAC and Facebook, but I never shook the man’s hand, never heard his voice. This would have been the first time.

David would chide me any time I bought a new acoustic guitar. “Why didn’t you go to Maury’s?” he’d say. “It makes NO SENSE to buy a Martin from anywhere else.” Well, today Maury’s is selling some of the guitars that David owned and played. The proceeds will benefit his family, which suffered financially from the full-throttle assault of his cancer and its necessary treatments. So I’d like you to take David’s advice as well, and I’ll do my best to make it worthwhile.