Hi, My name is Jim and I'm a Music-holic. I played my first instrument when I was about 10 years old, a ukulele. Six years later I got a guitar. I still play guitar every chance I get. I finally hit bottom about 1990 and quit my job. I just couldn't be a janitor anymore and keep on playing music. I (blushing here) even wrote songs on compnay time. I never got caught, though. Oh, and I used to play piano on company time, too. Never got caught at that, though I'm sure my supervisor knew.

Sometime about 1980 I started playing banjo. Then a year later fiddle. No one had the courage to tell me how sick I was. My wife, as it turns out was an enabler. She said she liked my music.

I have two guitars now, an 18^th century wire strung guittar, which is a sort of cittern, actually, two banjos, one of which is a fretless gourd banjo, two fiddles, a mandolin (oh, that's a sick, very sick story) a bass guitar that I haven't given back to its owner, two penny whistles, three recorders, a fife, and several harmonicas, and a kazoo.

The Mandolin Story

Here's how sick I've really become. Some years back, a group called The 97^th Regimental String Band called up and said that their third member was quitting at the end of the year. "We know you sing, play fiddle, and banjo, but can you play mandolin, too?"

Without batting an eyelash, I said "Sure."

"Fine." they said.

So we finished up the business end of the conversation, and I hung up the phone. I called a buddy of mine and I said "Quick, loan me your mandolin. I got six months to learn to play the thing."

And you know what? It worked. I got the gig. I toured with the 97^th for two years.
Jim