I met Monte our freshman year at SUNY Buffalo. There were groups singing and playing folk music in any space we could find. Monte would be there playing anything that had strings. Other players would stop when he started just to watch him play. He bummed cigarettes from everyone. He left school for several months when he started playing with Ian & Sylvia. One day he showed up at the student union with a big duffle bag. He looked up all of his friends and gave us cartons of cigarettes to pay us back "now that he was a success".