The BRC craftsman passed another calendar milestone this week, and so he again shares with readers his all-time favorite birthday card sent to him long ago by a sibling:
Playing the banjo for well over 60 years, he has bought, sold, and built many 5-stringers. The only instrument that he ever regretted selling was a circa 1963 Gibson J-200 sunburst guitar that he purchased for $300 while exploring the blues idiom during his college days. Soon drifting deeply into the Bluegrass genre, however, he sold the dreadnaught 6-stringer to a school chum for the aforesaid purchase amount. Although this vintage instrument retails online nowadays for up to $18K, what he nostalgically remembers is the unforgettably deep rich tone of this magnificent guitar pictured below in an archival 1967 home photograph.
To paraphrase Missouri`s favorite son Mark Twain: Good judgement comes with experience, and experience comes with having made bad judgements. Within a year of selling the iconic J-200, the BRC craftsman procured a circa 1964 Gibson SJ (Southern Jumbo) guitar for $75 that he has faithfully kept ever since. It is valued online these days for around $4K. At a recent jam session, a fiddler pointedly admired the marvelous tone of the SJ flat-top.
Felicitous greetings to all website visitors who share a birthday this month with the BRC craftsman and are likewise a year older and wiser. Shortly after this aforesaid calendar milestone, the BRC craftsman and spouse babysat the grandkids` dog at our home while the youngsters visited cousins in Chicago. One morning at daybreak, the hound reacted with barking when a hot air ballon passed over our backyard lake whoosing its hot air jets. The sunrise shared its skyline with another orb as photographed from our upper back deck.
For other photos of dawn at the BRC, enter sunrise in our homepage search engine.
From the BRC: Wishing all our readers a sunny long life, good health, and the very best of pickin` and song.
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