Athlete's foot! I guess you could say that's what got me started in a serious sort of way. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Mother use to say that I learned to sing before I learned to talk. I sang all the time, as did she. My dad couldn't carry a tune in a basket though. My brother played trumpet in the high school band (this was during WW2) and filled in as band leader when the regular band director was drafted. He left to join the Navy soon after. I, along with a few of my classmates, was recruited to become a member of the band but there was no one around to teach us how to play our instruments. We were given uniforms with express instructions not to blow one note. We were there only to make the band look larger. Finally, the band was disbanded, so to speak, until the war was over.

My uncle Buck gave me his old guitar that had ony four strings on it when I was about six or seven, and that probably whetted my appetite for that instrument.

In my third year of high school I got a bad case of athlete's foot and was confined to the bed for about three weeks. My mother ordered me a guitar from Sears and I taught myself the three basic chords in a few keys while recuperating. A friend down the street played guitar a little and he helped me out. We knew a younger girl who played accordian. We formed a trio and played at rodeos, and all types of gatherings.

When I left for college I left that all behind me, but later, when we had children one of daughters learned the fiddle (classical) and another daughter the flute, and I bought another guitar. We played a lot of music together and they learned (by ear) the folk music popular in the 1960s.

I spent most of my career managing symphony orchestras, but I never lost my love for Folk and Western music.

Sorry to have gone on so....

DougR