My folks got me a Ukulele when I was 5 years old. I didn't think much of it and gave it away after a short while. I got in a lot of trouble for that. Then this kid, Jimmy Olsen, came to my house in 4th grade with an electric bass he wanted me to play in his band. Two strings were missing and I didn't have a clue how to tune the two remaining ones. That was very short lived. the Uke lasted longer than the two stringed bass. I was a drummer in a band in middle school but in 8th grade my cousin Butch gave me an electric guitar as a graduation present. That was a big deal. I wrote a two chord opus using Dmaj and Dmaj7...back and forth...over and over. I played it at my graduation party and everyone was very polite. Nobody came forward offering to make me a big star, though.

I would say the pivotal point in my guitar journey was my first acoustic guitar which I got in Boulder Colorado. I was living in an 8x10 room in a flop house and saw a guitar at a yard sale. A Yamaha F-50 for $50. I strapped it on the back of my motorcycle and for that first year I played that thing every day for three to four hours. I missed one day. I kept track. Never got very good but I did get very familiar with about 4 chords...enough to play some of my favorite songs at the time, which was why I really wanted to play the guitar in the beginning. Before it got its hooks into me on other levels.