How fun is that! Thanks so much Dan! I really enjoyed it. And even a Deering banjo shows up, albeit it's a six string! Being from a musical family it meant a lot to me. My Grandfather had an orchestra and owned a dance club/catering hall. My Dad was a drummer and drum teacher. Aunts and uncles all played something and were in the band. When I was young, they started me off on trumpet which didn't last more than a year maybe. I just didn't have a lip for it. Then came piano. I got bored with it. They kept trying. String bass was next. I did a little better with that and ended up in my high school band on bass. I even taught myself drums, as there was always a full kit set up in a spare room at home. I'd play along with the Beatles. Dad hated the way I held the sicks, ala Ringo. But my heart was into folk music. I had already bought my first guitar, a $20 Harmony Stella, and Grandpa just happened to have a banjo in his attic which he gave me. I quit bass, and taught myself guitar and banjo, mostly listening to the Trio albums at 16-1/2 RPM. I only had two regrets out of all that. One, that I didn't stick with piano (I have a keyboard set up right behind me which I doodle on). And as for the bass, well, I was the only bass player in school and one of my classmates put together a rock band and needed a bass player. They conned me into trying playing for them. Electric bass. That didn't last long either. But I screwed that one up. They found a bass player, called themselves The D-Men, changed their names to The Fifth Estate and had a hit recording of Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead! Look them up on Wikipedia. I could have been one of them And a fairly wealthy eighteen year old!
One final memory was my very first onstage appearance. The high school annual talent show had the chorus singing This Land Is Your Land. They heard I played banjo and asked me to accompany them. I used Dave's intro to the song for that venture. Fun times back then. And I stuck with the folk music and lost my chance at fame and fortune!
Oh, and here's my first guitar and banjo.