Like bubblyrat, I bought a harmonica when I was 7, because it made noise, I had no idea what it was, and it was "less than a dollar."

When I was 12 and ready to move up to a school that had a band, my mother decided I should be in the band. My dad invited "some guy" over who had an instrument for sale. "Guy" brought his son along to demonstrate. Dad asked "how much." Guy said "$40." Dad said (to me) "you're a saxophone player."

It was pretty easy to see why "guy" sold the sax, because by the time I went to bed that night I played it better than his kid did, but the next day at school they told me I needed to get "the book," which I did on the way home. That was the end of my "formal music education," although I played the original tenor, and later bought myself an alto and a clarinet before "studies intervened" and I dropped out of the Concert Band after my 2d year of university.

Many years later, I fell in with a bunch of drunken bums who insisted we should all go to "festival" and while there I picked up a few penny whistles - because they were cheap, and I was told that I played "passably(?)" for a couple of years.

When the urge to have "something better" hit me, I bought a mandolin "for festival." The first year I took it to the fest, I got drunk enough one night to think I played it, and several others in the vicinity were drunk enough to agree; but the next day I found it rather difficult to make it do anything very musical, so it was not well used until about 10 years later when I acquired my (current) "trophy bride" who insisted I should "play with her," and the mando came back out of retirement. I now have three mandos, and play occasionally, despite frequent requests that I find something else to do.

Reduced to basic principles, I still play saxophone but I do it on a mandolin because my two saxophones are unplayable due to lack of maintenance and they'd be hard to play anyway since all my teeth fell out several years ago. I also do, rather rarely, mess with my harmonicas and p'whistles, but it's all strictly recreational - when the mood and circumstance are compatible.

John