MY OLD MARTIN GUITAR & MOM'S QUILT

MY OLD MARTIN GUITAR & MOM'S QUILT, a photo by Louise001 on Flickr.

MY OLD MARTIN GUITAR AND MOM'S QUILT

This is a repost, because I wanted to add that this quilt was begun for me when I was a little girl by my great grandmother who passed away before she finished it. My mom finished it for me in the 1980's.
My mom is 93 this month...:)
photo
MY OLD MARTIN....A 1947 ..0-17 MODEL

THE STORY OF MY OLD ''MARTIN''....

When I barely became a teenager in a highly musical family, we were always singing...around the piano, in the car, in church, performing on stages ....on the farm...everywhere....mostly my dad and I...Mom played the piano and sang a good alto though...my brothers didn't sing with the family...unless forced...:)..which usually didn't happen.
I loved guitar music and wanted one...so I signed up with a company to sell ''seeds''...flower and vegetable...in packets to anyone I could find to buy them, because one of the prizes, if I sold enough was a guitar.
I finally sold enough and practically held my breath waiting for the guitar...which finally arrived...and it was painted a very ugly GREEN...sort of a yellow/green/grey combo....Actually quite a shock...and it was made of some sort of pressed wood/cardboard combo! The plastic strings would not hold a tune for more than 3-4 minutes....and it was heartbreaking!
However...I did learn to play a few chords on it....but not too great..needless to say.

One day, my dad came home from the weekly livestock auction he attended...(buying and/or selling)...with a guitar!
He said, " Anyone who can play a tune on that green piece of junk, deserves a real one!"...and there was my beautiful Martin...a used one...but a real one...:) Dad said a ''down and out cowboy singer'' was at the auction and needed money, and wanted to sell it...so dad helped him out(as he often did for many people).
I still have this guitar....which was well used in the early 50's when I got it....the frets are worn down, and the ''Ivory'' on the tuning keys has deteriorated....but it still has the marvelous Martin tone...I have loved it for over 50 years.

Regarding my dad....he passed away at the age of 56 ....lung cancer...he never smoked in his life....but he did spray a lot of ditches to kill weeds for irrigation purposes on the farm with 24 D and 245 T and Malathion and DDT were also used on the farm.....before they banned it.....and breathed a lot of dust from grinding his own grain etc for all the livestock....we had a lot of them.