My musical career, such as it was, February 4th, 2026.

I grew up in a musical home, sort of. Neither of my parents played any instruments, but music was quite important to them.

This came out primarily in their love of hymns and gospel songs.

They also had what was in those days called a high-fi, and the playing of records was common,

gospel, hymns, Gilbert and Sullivan, and folk songs. No, no, not Bob Dylan, more like Stephen Foster.

I had a few short stints in some choirs, one at church and the other one in my public school.

I enjoyed it, but nothing earth-shaking. I also had about a year of piano lessons from a friend of my parents, a kindly gent named Larry Moyer. My problem was that I have a fairly good ear for a tune, and so I never really learned to read music all that well. I would tuck the tune away and play it while staring at the sheet of music in front of me,

a sheet of paper to which I was determined to open. really learned to read music all that well. I would tuck the tune away and play it while staring

at the sheet of music in front of me, a sheet of paper to which I was determined to owe very

little. My piano instructor figured out what I was doing after a period of time, and so he settled

for teaching me how to play chords, an ability I retained to this very day. Okay, full disclosure

here. Nancy doesn't like it when I describe myself

as musically illiterate, and she does have kind of a pretty good point. We stand next to each other

in church where we sing a lot, and she knows that I go up when we are supposed to go up and down

when we're supposed to go down, and I do have some understanding of quarter notes and half notes and

stuff. So just take any self-deprecating comments I might make down, and I do have some understanding of quarter notes and half notes and stuff.

So just take any self-deprecating comments I might make here and then spot me 10 points in a

better direction. I'd grown up in Annapolis, mostly, but in the summer of 1968, we moved to

Ann Harbor, where I then spent my high school years. This was notable on the musical front,

because my birthday is in June and I turned

15 while we were on the road to Michigan. My parents pulled into a mall somewhere on the way and bought me

my birthday present, which was my first guitar. It was sort of a test run guitar, not full size. It was,

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