He jokes that it’s “all about the hair” (dark locks that we’ve
seen slung over, spiked, and/ or carefully placed), but for Thomas Duncan, it’s
really all about the heart.
If sitting across a table from Thomas at say, Flying M
Coffee Garage in Nampa, you’ll get a clear picture from his puzzle piece
tattoo that, by design, faces whoever he’s with.
“Everyone has something missing. I want people to know those things
can be overcome. See how it’s dark around the heart? We all have things that
are dark, but at the core is love. When I look down and see this, and when you
see this, we’re reminded we’re loved. No matter who you are, or what those
black things are, overcoming is at the center.”
Thomas Duncan wants to help people through teaching,
inspiring, and his example of rising above the pain. Toying around with an
idea for how to do that for a while now, the opportunity recently presented
itself. Without any extensive planning or financial backup, The Canyon West
Guitars owner seized the day and rented the basement of the building already
housing his primary business, figuring if it was dead wrong, God would tell
him.
He got no such sign.
Through his guitar shop, Thomas plans to collaborate with agencies
working with autistic kids, helping them via the one thing that transcends most
barriers: music.
Welcome to the AIM (Autistic Inclusion through Music)
Project.
“You can say anything without verbal communication, just
play your heart on your guitar,” Thomas says enthusiastically, “We’ll take the
kids into the studios, teach them to play in a rock band setting, and then let ‘em
go.”
He smiles slightly over being told not long ago that if he knew
a little more about autism and autistic children, the downstairs “might not be
ideal”.
As it happens, Thomas Duncan knows an awful lot about
autism. He and his wife, Sandra, have an autistic child who was diagnosed at a
young age. While in the process of becoming educated, Thomas began to realize
he and his young son shared many of the same traits.
“That really made me wonder what was up,” he says, “as a
kid, I was the ‘weird’ one, but autism? I never once suspected that, not even a
little bit, since everybody’s got their own brand of weird, and that’s okay.
But seeing those pieces fit together was uncanny, being an employed adult in my
thirties, providing for my family. That’s a huge diagnosis to come along when
you have a wife, four kids, and you’re a professional. For a while, it put me
in a bad place mentally. You could compare it to looking into a mirror and
seeing the self you know one day, then a totally different person the next,
with a face you don’t recognize. An autism diagnosis changed everything about how
I viewed myself. Every. Single. Thing.”
Overnight he began to understand why he’d awake some
mornings with sensory issues, and felt he could relate quite well to what his
son had and would go through. He’s grateful for modern advances that currently
assist people with autism, unlike how things were three decades ago.
As a child, (and long before there was vast knowledge
regarding gluten sensitivity and such), Thomas saw doctors who’d inevitably
say, “Sorry. It’s just nerves. There’s nothing we can do, because there’s
nothing wrong with you. You’ll be okay.”
What plagued Thomas was not something anyone else could see;
he was repeatedly told to just snap out of it, leaving him alone in what he
described as a legitimate, unpleasant, horrifying experience that he would have
done anything to get out of.
“I was fighting an actual, developmental, real, honest thing.”
He grew up viewing himself as the square peg, but what those
around him didn’t know was that due to the ultra-sensitive, unusual stress and hazards
of his daily living, depression grew to the point of suicidal thoughts.
“I got tired of being the odd man out, tired of what felt
like rejection and abandonment. I didn’t know why I was the way I was.”
Music was the bright spot in this youth’s life; he sang and
played instruments at every opportunity. As a teenager, he approached an
organization that was performing Handel’s Messiah, and was told he needed to
talk to “Buck”.
Buck turned out to be a large, barrel-chested, big-voiced
man with an even larger, Type A personality who had the six-foot, 125-pound
Thomas sing a bass aria for him. Thomas felt he killed it, and afterwards Buck
said, “I want to give you vocal lessons.”
Thomas’s mother resisted, stating that the family didn’t
have the money for lessons.
Buck pointedly explained, “I said I want to give him vocal lessons.”
That, Thomas surmises, was probably what saved his life.
Buck showed faith and confidence in him, taking him from a mere performer of
music to a musician who came to understand the deeper theory behind the music
he made. By the time Thomas was sixteen, he visited Buck’s house six days a
week, practicing for approximately sixty hours. Meanwhile, Buck had Thomas act
as the orchestra librarian, children’s chorus director, and allowed him to
direct orchestra rehearsals.
“’Don’t let the brass get away with this, don’t let Joe rush
when you get into this section, okay guys, Thomas is taking over,’ he’d say,”
Thomas relates.
Buck taught Thomas to be both a leader and a man, providing
situations where he absorbed lessons on people management, communication, and
organization. Without knowing anything back then about Autism or Aspberger’s
Syndrome, Buck simply took care of a boy who seemed to need some direction and
guidance.
Thomas Duncan wants to provide that same outlet for youth in
our community who feel like he once did, in an effort to prevent what he
suffered. He posts the quote on social media, “(Autism) is fighting a
war where the enemy’s strategy is to convince you that the war isn’t actually
happening”, coming from one who “gets it”.
Since opening Canyon West Guitars, this Nampa business owner
has taken three big risks. The first was opening the store with no capital, no “back
up” job, and no bank financing. Inventory included sixteen sets of guitar
strings, a few straps, and some “random stuff”. Within weeks of opening the
store on Canyon Boulevard, the building was robbed.
Draining their checking account to be able to move downtown,
(risk number two) proved to be a step in the right direction. Thomas became
involved with downtown Nampa’s rejuvenation, submitting his “Psychotography”
for the Phantom Gallery’s display windows, getting to know resident business
owners, and even offering random downtown tours.
When told he’s “kind of the
face of downtown”, he laughs in typical humble fashion, however, Thomas has
built himself a family among the Nampa business blocks.
To Thomas, the AIM Project has a similar feel.
“Massive Risk Number Three,” he says, “People have been very
supportive, offering ideas and help all over the place.”
The studios he’s rented are viewed as canvases that will
soon be filled with kids making music.
He envisions a Friday night of AIM kids playing their
hearts, with a Canyon West crew or two taking the tunes into downtown,
expressing themselves in universal ways that are understandable to everyone
amongst applause, whistling, and feedback that will let performers know they’re
valued, important members of the community.
“Rock and roll,” smiles Thomas, “it’s gonna be going on.
It’s going to be very busy, and very human.”
