How Guitar Saved Us Both

Tony Polecastro December 5, 2025

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How six strings carried me through life, and now carry my granddaughter too

By Nancy (“Nana Nancy”)

I’ve been inspired by so many of your stories… and since today is my 67th birthday, I finally decided it was my turn to share.

It feels funny to admit this, but guitar has helped me through some of the most difficult moments of my life.

I grew up a bit of a loner. I loved to draw, knit, walk, bike — all things a kid in the ’60s could do for free, because honestly, we grew up poor. But my dad, even though he drank too much, could play a mean guitar (all by ear). Six daughters harmonizing around him… oh, those are some of my happiest memories.

In grade 6, the nuns introduced us to classical guitar. Free lessons once a week at lunchtime. I loved lugging that guitar to school and trying to fingerpick every note they taught us. My dad didn’t care much for fingerpicking — he strummed — so I tried to copy him too.

High school wasn’t much different. I wasn’t popular. I did well in school but didn’t have a lot of friends. My attention was on hobbies, not social life. I worked at the local bakery from age 13, and my goal was always to play Dad’s guitar. But girls playing guitar “wasn’t cool,” according to the few friends I had. Still, Dad taught me “I Walk the Line,” which I proudly performed for the nuns. They frowned, of course… but oh, how proud I felt.

Life happened next — marriage, kids, responsibilities.

Fast-forward to 2015. After years away, my Dad’s guitar came back to me. It had been sitting in my sister’s closet forever. I took it to a luthier and had it restored. My playing hadn’t progressed beyond the two or three songs I learned decades earlier, but picking up his guitar brought back floods of memories — all of us singing together, smiling.

In 2018, I found Tony and TAC. I was retiring, and my colleagues gifted me $500. I bought a secondhand cutaway guitar and signed up. It was my gift to me.

Tony’s “10 minutes a day” and the support of this community changed everything. I built confidence. Learned real songs — about 15 now that I feel good playing. And somehow… I now own five guitars.

But the reason I’m writing this story isn’t about me.

It’s about my granddaughter, Lydia.

She’s twelve, and she is so very much like I was — a little lonely, unsure of herself, navigating her parents’ separation. So last summer, I introduced her to guitar. I paid for lessons all fall. I bought her two small guitars — one for each home so she’d never be without one.

And friends… she is flourishing.

She played at a local winery in front of a full house. She’s booked for a June 21st show. The guitar has become her solace, her sanity, her friend. I see her become one with the melody. I see her confidence rise. I see her handling her emotions through music.

And the bond between us? It’s something only we truly understand.

The guitar saved me — and now it’s saving Lydia too.

Oh, how I wish I could gift every lonely 12-year-old an instrument. If the nuns had taught us with the enthusiasm, simplicity, and care Tony gives… I might’ve been a rock star by now.

But honestly? Being “Nana Nancy,” sitting beside my granddaughter as she finds her voice — that’s better than any stage.

Categories: Guitar Stories

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