If folks will indulge us for a moment. In reference to GUEST,999's post at 03 Jan 12 - 10:55 p.m.

Thanks for the kind words, Bruce. Sorry I wasn't able to get back to you right away, but yesterday was a really busy one.

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Yup. Older than dirt. I was eighty my last birthday, and that was over seven months ago!

What kind of guitar do I play? Well, I've been through several guitars since I bought my first one, a Regal, for $9.95, back in 1952. When I started taking classic guitar lessons in 1954, I got a Martin classic (00-28-G), and I've had several guitars since then, including a top quality flamenco guitar made by Arcangel Fernandez of Madrid. It's appreciated so much in value since I got it in 1961 that I'm afraid to take it out of the house!

My current arsenal consists of the Fernandez, and a Japanese-made classic imported by José Oribé and approved by him to be sold under his label. Following the practice of some Japanese guitar makers, it's a dead-ringer for a José Ramirez, the guitar that Segovia played. A few years ago, I did a folk song recital for the Seattle Classic Guitar Society, using it. There is a lot of high-priced lumber at those meetings, including a few genuine Ramirez classics, and my Japanese look-alike sounded good enough that everyone assumed that it WAS a Ramirez. I got it in the mid-1970s for $350.

I've been in a wheelchair for the past twenty-odd years, and playing a full-size classic when I'm sitting in the chair is awkward because the lower bout of the guitar and the right wheel of the chair want to occupy the same space. So after doing a heap of research, I got myself a nylon-string "Go-guitar," a travel guitar made by Sam Radding in San Diego. Legend has it the Sam taught a teen-aged Bob Taylor (yes, that Bob Taylor) how to make guitars when he wanted to make his own guitar in high school wood shop class.

The Go-guitar looks like the love-child of an unnatural relationship between a guitar and a canoe paddle, but it's very well made and it sounds amazingly full for such a little soundbox. I've used it for a number of performances, and occasionally someone will ask me if it's a "period instrument" of some kind. Just in case you're interested in something like this, here's Sam's web site:   Go-guitars. Mine is a GO-GW model, on the "Our Products" page.

My ten favorite songs. Wow! I don't know if I could pick particular favorites. I guess I know a few hundred songs, and each one was my "favorite" when I was learning it, but I like them all.

Early on, I learned a bunch of the "standard" songs and ballads that were recorded by singers like Burl Ives, Susan Reed, and Richard Dyer-Bennet, such as "Barbara Allen," "Lord Randal," "Greensleeves" (I keep it down to three verses), "The Streets of Laredo," the songs that every "folk singer" was expected to know.

Some current favorites, among many, are songs such as "Geordie," "The Unquiet Grave," "MacPherson's Farewell," "The Bonnie Earl of Moray," "So We'll Go No More a-Roving" (a poem by Lord Byron set to music by Richard Dyer-Bennet), "Golden Hair" (a poem by James Joyce that a friend of mine set to a really nice, simple melody), "Gilgarry Mountain" (version learned from an old record by Frank Warner, but which has morphed a bit over time), "Copper Kettle" by Ed Beddoe (which I thought was traditional when I first learned it), which I coupled with a particularly mournful version of "Moonshiner," sung by Rolf Cahn. I sing "Copper Kettle," then go directly into "Moonshiner" without pause.

Really hard to pick ten favorites. With the list above, I leave out such great songs as "High Barbaree," "The Golden Vanity," "Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies," "Red is the Rose" (just learned, from the singing of Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem). . . .

Pretty tough to pick out ten favorites from songs I've been singing for decades and others I'm just in the process of learning.

Regards,

Don Firth

Now, back to our regular program of hackin' and hewin'.

Ron Paul!??

"Who is John Galt?"
             —First line of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.