It's not very often that someone can go from talking about degeneration theories and tattoos to showing someone how to string a banjo, then circle back to discussing folklore and fairies in literature.
But if you're talking to Tom O'Shea, this is a completely normal conversation.
O'Shea is an English instructor at Auburn University and the owner of The Guitar Shoppe on East Glenn Avenue.
O'Shea loves both his teaching position and his job running The Shoppe and said he has had an interesting journey to get where he is today.
Before returning to school to get his masters in English, O'Shea worked in Chicago as a clerk for a few years.
"I kind of realized I could go back to school, and it'd be fun," O'Shea said. "I got there, and I realized I was having a wonderful time and started teaching and really liked it so I kind of worked my way into it that way."
O'Shea taught at Springfield College in Mobile and Tuskegee University before he came to Auburn in 2001. Once in Auburn, O'Shea immersed himself in the local music scene.
"I got a guitar and started teaching myself, and other people had instruments so we just started playing together," O'Shea said. "Pretty soon we had a band, and then we had a band."
O'Shea started making PA systems for the band, which lead to becoming a representative for a speaker designer and becoming interested in how sound systems and instruments worked.
He continued to get more interested in fixing guitars and instruments in general and started fixing instruments for The Guitar Shoppe.
"I'm a friend of Mark Mckenzie's, who owned The Guitar Shoppe," O'Shea said. "Back in December, he felt like it was time for him to do something else and Constance [O'Shea's wife] and I decided this would be a good thing to do."
Although he has only been the owner for three months, O'Shea and his staff are very close and have come up with a lot of new ideas for The Shoppe.
"We have a lot of interesting stuff going on," O'Shea said. "We've got a recording studio, we've done some archival recording things, and we do repairs. We do lessons in just about any kind of instrument. We have jam sessions every Saturday - at 10:30 am we have old time and bluegrass stuff, at one is rock and rollers and at 3:30 we do jazz and blues."
Many of the workers at The Guitar Shoppe have worked there for a long time and love the atmosphere of shoppe and O'Shea's playful personality.
"He's super laid back, super easy to deal with and he just loves the store and everything about it, so it's easy to work for him," said Josh Mckenzie, who has worked in The Guitar Shoppe for 10 years. "It makes you want to come to work. He's always trying to push for new and how we can make the store better."
Larry Mitchell, a Grammy-winning producer and engineer, has been coming to The Guitar Shoppe for many years and enjoys just hanging out with the employees and customers.
"I just stop in, everybody here is really nice," Mitchell said. "It's a good vibe and it's always very friendly."
Although being a teacher and being the owner of The Guitar Shoppe may seem like two entirely unrelated and hard to balance, O'Shea doesn't see it that way.
"Teaching comes first, that's the real job. I work here when I can, but teaching is the important thing," O'Shea said. "Teaching is what matters. But even when I'm here, I'm teaching someone. I'm teaching someone about their instrument or how to play something, that kind of thing. Teaching English is who I am or what I do or something, but this is something in addition to that."
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