I was born into a family that sang and played music. My grandparents played for house dances that they and their other homesteading neighbors would share. When I was about five, my older brother found a bundle of twenty dollar bills totalling $1000. He had been looking around in the old gravel pit in the country near our farm. He came running home, waving it in the air, yelling 'now I can go to college, now I can buy an electic guitar'. After a year, he was able to keep the money. Apparently it could have been from a cafe robbery in Canada, and the thieves had crossed the border to Great Falls and split the money up while parked in the gravel pit, losing a bundle of $20's in the dark.
My brother wrote a letter to Chet Atkins, telling him that he really wanted to learn to play like him. Chet Atkins wrote back, saying just keep practicing.

We had music all around us. It was an important part of our family life.

alice in montana