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In my teen years,a few of us were hanging around Town Hall steps in Bridgetown, NS ... population 750, and nothing else to do. A couple in a Chrysler New Yorker pulled up with Connecticut plates asking for directions to the Bay of Fundy ferry terminal in Digby. We sent him on a wild goose chase into the mountains, thinking they'd end up being eaten by rednecks (insert "Dueling Banjos" here). The real stupid thing on our part is that we were still there when they came back a couple hours later. It did NOT go well, and I got beat up pretty good by an infuriated tourist.

Don't know if this qualifies, but there's an elderly lady who goes to our church who makes amazing home made bread. She knows I'm crazy about it, especially when slathered with a healthy layer of peanut butter. Every so often, she'll leave a loaf on the car seat which we'll find as we're getting ready to leave. I've never seen her put it there, but it's a neat little reminder that says she cares without any words.

Aside of getting Guitar Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.) we've all been though wanting to get at least one more, as Jets60 explains (good stuff, by the way!). With my Norman out on long-term loan, that leaves an electric, a steel string acoustic, and a classical. This pretty well covers every style I play, which is the real question for anyone. In learning a new song with any degree of complexity, I typically try to learn it on the classical first. That way the fingering for both ends gets developed right, which then transforms over to the others.

Topdown is a rare and precious example of those stellar individuals who become a blessing to others through personal tragedy. You, sir, are an inspiration ... I salute you.

The power of music to heal cannot be overstated. We have friends whose young teenage son was heading in a troubled direction. I "lent" him my Norman last year, and he's been spending more time constructively by learning to play, and coming out of his shell a bit. We jam together from time to time, and he'll be "licking the chops" in no time ... a natural. It's miniscule to what Topdown is doing, but it never hurts to be reminded that sharing our love of music with others is always the right thing to do.

Thanks, Topdown .... go get 'em!

My first two were a 5-watt and soon a 20-watt unit ... some no-name brand;

I decided to put to the two together, and crammed both speakers into the bigger amp's cabinet. Next, I ran the output wires from the 5-watt into the Input Jack of the 20-watt, and plugged in. I never heard such distortion in my life!!! If I played a barre chord, you couldn't tell what key it was, but just got hit by a bunch of fuzz. It burned out in a few weeks, but we had fun trying to do some Hendrix. As I recall, his "Star Spangled Banner" actually sounded half decent from it ... but at 12 years old or so, what wouldn't?

Good thing no one got electrocuted .................

When a few of us were starting out with guitars as kids and into the early teens, picks weren't readily available in rural Nova Scotia. We would take scissors and cut our own out of the plastic top from an ice cream container. Mom wasn't pleased if we did it before the ice cream was gone (LOL).

Perhaps for that reason, I still prefer a very thin / pliable pick (0.60 mm) because it feels almost as good as an "ice cream pick". And I'm ever grateful to Dunlop for making their nylon picks with the rough place to keep them from taking flight. I hate that extended "f-l-a-n-g" a smooth pick makes just before they dive into the sound hole.

Also in the Valley ... New Minas.

Two cups of Dark Roast Columbian coffee in the morning, but tea throughout the rest of the day ... love 'em both.

I don't claim to be much more than an average guitarist, but I certainly notice that an electric can be far more forgiving of a guitarists technique flaws than an acoustic will be. The string gauge observation makes a lot of sense, and the sustain of an electric vs. acoustic also makes a huge difference. Then there's the HUGE matter of sustain and how that affects playing style. "Dazed & Confused" sounds incredible on an electric, but empty on an acoustic ... because of the sustain & the bending ability.

As a further example, on the acoustic playing open / traditional style chords sounds much nicer, and offers a lot of flat-picking interplay within the chords. The guitarist doesn't need to think much about dampening, as the sustain isn't enough to garble the overall sound. On the electric, barre chords seem to sound much better, and the guitarist must constantly be dampening the string(s) to avoid the cacophony.

I'm not saying that one instrument requires a different skill level than the other, but they both require an adjustment in playing style. An acoustic can function quite nicely as a solo instrument, whereas an electric lends itself better to an ensemble. Apart from the fundamentals, they're almost two different instruments.

Phil ...

My dear wife of 34 yrs is from England, and we've had fun over the years learning one another's vocabulary. We had to alter her phrase "Stick it in your boot" to keep someone from thinking she was telling them off in a rude fashion.

Back to the harmonica, I had some brief adventures with a little Hohner I've got here, and never managed to control the drool successfully. I remember seeing Johnny Cash on TV years ago playing "Orange Blossom Special", and he had three of them in between his fingers to deal with the key changes ... pretty amazing stuff.