Haven't thought about this for a long time. I was a 17 year old high school senior in Goshen, Indiana, about to head out for college when I sold the well played Harmony Sovereign I had banged on for eight years, got my best friend Steve Harris, who played great guitar and bass, and we drove up into the wilds of Michigan on a road-trip to find the guy we had heard (from Rick Curtis, a fine guitarist and folk singer from our area who went on to pen the Steven Stills classic "Southern Cross") was making great Dreadnaught style guitars in a geodesic dome somewhere up there. This guy was named Jan Burda, and we had his number scrawled on the back of a napkin. Needless to say, I was inspired.

Seeing as how it was 1971, and we were good, practicing hippie-boys, you can imagine the road trip became an epic road "trip", leaving town after a "mental adjustment", becoming helplessly lost, gorging at a local Dog & Suds drive-in somewhere around St. Joe Harbor, Mich, finding our way, losing it again, night falls, we call the dome, nice woman gives us directions for the third time, numerous stops to "clear our heads", finally arriving late and addled up a rural drive in Steve's flat-black 1969 Plymouth Fury with the cop-car Eliminator package roaring. The gentle woman greeted us, served us something. A somewhat skeptical (of us?!) man named Jan showed us a number of guitars that were in the process of being built. Steve and I played his for an hour, I gave him half the money up front in cash to finish a big Dreadnaught for me, and left to find our confused but happy way back to Goshen.

One month later I made the return trip to the dome with the lovely (and famously leggy) Carol Mayse, paid the balance, drank the beer we had brought, shared some of the local "inspiration" we had brought along, and eventually came home with the biggest acoustic guitar I had ever seen, let alone played! He even threw in the Martin hard case!

Many years and much playing and knocking around later, the beautiful DOVE guitar Jan Burda made for me is sadly gathering dust in the beat up free case in which Jan sent it off with me. I wish I could say it was in mint condition, but it really could use some work. Have played a fine guitar made in 1978 by Tom Rein, luthier formerly of Lexington, KY, now thought to be in Virginia somewhere. But, lately, I've wished I could find Jan Burda and have him repair and refurbish the old DOVE again. It had a huge sound that I miss, plus all the years from '71 to '81 associated with it.

Thought I'd share this, to add to the "stories" mentioned earlier.

KMM