Hi Bill S

I assume by your e-mail that you are in WA? I empathise with your predicament, and echo everyone else's comments. Don't give the guitar away. A friend of mine has been a folkie for a long time and has been travelling around the outback a fair bit over the last few years. he comes back with lots of country & western tunes which seem to fit okay with the rest of his traditional Oz music repertoire. He takes his guitar with him when he travels and I think he just sits in pubs or cafes and camping grounds and plays when the urge hits him. He has told us that lots of people come out of the woodowork and join in singing or playing.

So, maybe you can investigate the country music around your area and you might find enough similarity in the tunes and the lyrics to at least have some other people to play with, and maybe it is also worth thinking about just sitting somewhere public with your guitar and seeing if anyone else shows up who wants to join in. This is assuming that you are not way out on your own with no passers by at all :-)

Regards, Helen (Newcastle, NSW)