Here ya go Val. Your description of the location of Elderly indicates that you were a mere child when last you were in Elderly. They have not been on Grand River for years. My understanding of the beginnings of the business is that it started out as a communal business in the 60's. Over the years, Stan Wuerbling (the current owner and one of the founders) bought out the others and has run it since. That could be fiction, but it is the lore of the place.

Stan purchased the Foresters hall on N. Washington and moved the business there. It is about a mile North of the Capitol in the Old Town district.

They are the largest distributor of Martin Guitars in the world.They have one room devoted to Martin and high end new and used guitars and you can walk in and play any one of them you would like without someone over your shoulder. There are several glider chairs made for guitar players (no arms)and you can sit right down and play your heart out. It is a real treat to pick up a $15,000 guitar and play it like you know what you are doing. The main area of the showroom has all the standard grade guitars and also the electric guitars. If you want to hear any of the electric or electric acoustics plugged in there are separate rooms for each, one with acoustic amps and one with electric amps.

The shop is probably one of the great folk shops in the world. They have every kind of stringed instrument from Strad's to Strat's. Name the folk stringed, wind or percussion instrument and you will find it there. Citterns, bouzouki, mandolins, mandocello's, banjo's, dobro's, harps, bodhrans, a great selection of whistles and low whistles, harps, upright bass's, fiddles, didjerido's, frame drums from the various aboriginal peoples, sitar's.........you name it, they got it. And you can feel free to play any of them. Looking for folk/blues songbooks, instructional books, tapes and video's? They have about everything you can imagine. I purchased Leo Rowsomme's tutor for the Uillean pipes off the shelf. They carry Mudcat's own Dan Milner's book A Bonnie Bunch of Roses. How about tapes and CD's of folk/ethnic/blues performers? You will find them here. They carry many of Sandy and Caroline Paton's Folk Legacy CD's and tapes, Art Theime, Dan Milner, Bok-Muir-Trickett as well as most of the performers that 'Catters would enjoy. Need work done on your instrument? They have one of the finest repair departments around. I have had them work on my 1963 Guild 12 string. They do excellent work and I won't take it anywhere else.

I know I sound like a shill for these fine folks, but I have no connection to them. I have had the good fortune to have travelled all over this fine country, and have been in fine shops all over this land. Mandolin Brothers is close, but quite frankly I consider Elderly to be the finest shop of its type in existence.

All the best,

Mick