How Did I Get Into This?

My Father worked for a large manufacturer and one of the people he knew that worked there repaired stringed instruments. He must have told the man that his son played guitar and might like to see his shop. The guy agreed to a visit and we set off one morning to check it out. I was about twenty three at the time and Dad watched me work on all kinds of wood projects over the years and knew that I would love this trip.
We arrived and met the guy and walked into his little shop. There hanging on the walls was a very large collection of guitars with several being harp guitars. Most of them had “The Gibson ” logo on the head piece. Harp guitars was a type made in the 20s and 30s that had a set of bass strings running along the side so that you could play bass notes along with the treble notes. They were very rare at that time and even more so today since they didn’t hold up very well because of the stress of all those strings on neck and bout. I just stood there amazed and dazzled by all those old instruments that he had collected over the years. There were other makes but he had a special interest for the very old “The Gibson” models. There were other stringed instruments of every type stacked all around the shop. Then he pulled back a curtain under his work bench and stacked on top of one another were more guitars with the necks removed so they took up less space. He said he would sell those for five dollars apiece. Dad loaned me some money and I bought four or five of them. Two were unmarked, one was a Washington and the best one was a Washburn. I didn’t get a book on how to do it I just did what I thought was right and repaired all four and sold three. I still have the old Washburn and it has been everywhere with me from a top of a mountain in Utah to a camp ground in the Ozarks. Later in life I bought a book and started building and repairing Guitars and it has kept me as busy as I want to be for now and that’s how I got into building Guitars….