Wow!

There is no way I could describe all the things my parents did for me. I had polio at the age of 2, and this involved an early life of doctors' appointments and hospital stays and exercises and physical therapy and everything else that goes with it. Let's face it, when I was a kid, I was a real financial drain, and my folks were not rich. But they were bloody determined that no matter what the extent of the disability, I would be able to be self-sufficient and have the best life possible. I simply can't describe all they did for me without writing something book-length.

But there were other things as well. One of the real biggies was that they always supported the efforts and ambitions of my two sisters and me if we were seriously interested in something.

Both of my sisters OD'ed on Sonja Henie movies early on and wanted to learn to figure skate. Mom drove them to and from the local ice arena for lessons and accompanied them on subsequent trips to competitions, and Dad paid for their lessons and for the trips. The ultimate result was that my older sister, Mary, won a National Silver Dance Championship in 1948 (or was it '49?) with her skating partner, Donald Laws, and my younger sister, Pat, won two Pacific Coast Senior Ladies' Championships and a National Junior Ladies' in the early 1950s. The National Championship win qualified her to compete in the World Championships in Vienna, where she placed 7th behind skaters like Tenley Albright and Carol Heiss. After collecting a batch of medals and trophies, they both turned professional and taught skating.

Early on, I was interested in drawing and cartooning. My Dad bought me the art supplies I needed and cobbled together a very nice drawing board for me. Dad supported my fencing activities when I was a teen-ager, and it would take pages to describe the nature of the encouragement and support he gave me. There's a real story there, but too long to go into here.

When I became involved with folk music, I was old enough (21 when I bought my first guitar) to pay for my own lessons, but when I started taking classic guitar lessons, my classic guitar teacher had a shiny new Martin 00-28-G (gorgeous guitar!) for sale, and he offered to take my steel-string Martin (00-18) as a trade in for what I had paid for it. But I still couldn't afford it. My mother said, "Consider it an early birthday present," and bought the guitar for me.

You just can't beat parents like that!

Don Firth