I have made quite a lot of chairs over the years and hope to make a lot more. It seems that as each couple months go by I find a better way to do one job or another, or one of my students says "Hey! You know you could ...." and off I go making changes. I guess the creative process, modifying this or that, is what I enjoy the most, perhaps that is why I make so many changes. I have always been making something as long as I can remember. My father was a fine craftsman although he never taught me anything; I guess genetics counts for something! After graduating from college and starting my first job, my first purchase of significance was a Sears band saw. This was in about '74 at a time when I think Sears quality was at an all time low so it was really not much of a machine although I have to say I made a lot of furniture with it. I made coffee tables and end tables out of 2x4s and 1x4s. I know it sounds pretty crude but by the time I finished them they looked very nice, even refined if I do say so. They were very popular, almost everyone who saw them wanted me to make one for them.

Making guitars had been a dream of mine for several years by this time so I was always on the lookout for a book on the subject. Living very close to DC I would visit the Smithsonian book store every month or so thinking this would be the ideal place to find such a book but alas I always came up empty handed. Then I had to travel to Sweden for business for several weeks and on my first weekend, wandering the streets of old town Stockholm I walked by a music store and - would you believe it! - There in the center of the window display was a book by Irving Sloane - "How to Make a Classical Guitar" About two minutes later I was walking back to my hotel with that book. I spent the remainder of the weekend and the next in my hotel room memorizing that book!

When I got home a friend of mine had a son about 14 years old who wanted to take guitar lessons in school and he was asking me about a good inexpensive guitar. Knowing that such a thing did not exist I told him I would make his son a guitar. He looked at me like I was from outer space and said "What?" I assured him I was fully capable, having recently acquired a book on the subject. Being the extremely nice fellow that he was, he said well, go ahead. I bought all the tools I needed (mostly hand tools) but had to get a "bending iron" to bend the sides of the instrument, and then commenced work. I found a fellow in the middle of DC, Joseph Wallow, who sold wood for guitars. Joseph was working at Weaver's violin shop, about four blocks from the White House, repairing violins and such. I visited frequently to buy wood and ask advice. He was very close with his information until he saw my work and then I couldn't stop him giving me tips and showing me how to do things. Well, after about a month I had the guitar finished and it was a thing of beauty and the sound was even better than it's looks. I know it sounds like I am bragging but I am not. The first stop, of course, was to take it down town to show Joseph. He went on and on about it and was so proud that he had helped me make it that I will never forget that visit. When my friend's son saw his new guitar he was thrilled and I showed him how to play a few chords and such. The following week he took the instrument to school and when he took it out of the case the music teacher came rushing over to him and asked "Do your parents know you brought this guitar to school?" Buoyed by my success I immediately commenced work on a guitar for myself. Believing myself now to be "quite the guitar maker" from my first experience, this second instrument put my feet squarely on the ground. Just about everything that could have gone wrong did. I finished it but it was not anything to brag about. So - what to do? - Well - start the next instrument of course. My third classical guitar, made around '76 now belongs to my son Thad. I finished it when I was living in New York in the late '70s and being curious about what a "real" guitar player would think, I looked in the phone book and found "The Guitar Center of New York" Wow! I thought, I bet they could tell me. So I put my new guitar in an old laundry bag, jumped in the car and found this place. I walked through the door, went up to the fellow at the desk, introduced myself and told the story of my making a classical guitar and would he be interested in playing it to tell me what he thought. To which he replied:

"NO, I am not interested, nor do I have the time. There is a music store down the road, I would suggest you take it there." Undaunted, I took my guitar out of the laundry bag and when he saw it he said, "Well, I could play it for a couple minutes." Thirty minutes later I had to put my foot in his chest to get my guitar away from him. As I left, he followed me to the door asking how much I would charge to make a guitar for him.

Since that time I have made banjos, dulcimers and I made harps for my daughters. I love making musical instruments because the instant I start work I just can't wait to see what they are going to sound like! -- So it is with rocking chairs, when I start a chair, almost from the first cut in wood I am curious to know how it is going to sit and rock.