My beloved Uncle Lloyd passed away last week. He was 76.

This guitar was his when I was a guitar-crazy young pup who enthusiastically wanted to learn how to play one of these beautiful things. Uncle Lloyd was the best guitar player I knew back then, and I took full advantage of the relation. Whenever I got to visit Uncle Lloyd, I always wanted to hear him play, I always wanted to learn a new riff or chord from him, and I wanted a classy, fancy guitar like the Hagstrom H-700 that he had.

When I was a pup, I told Uncle Lloyd that I wanted to play the guitar like how George Harrison played on those early Beatles records. Yeah; my sister and I are both still Beatlemaniacs...

That was when Uncle Lloyd gave me the best musical gift that I've ever received.

He dug through his record collection ( vinyl records...remember those? ) and threw a stack of albums in my lap: Buddy Holly, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Duane Eddy: all these really good 1950s guitarists.

And he said:

"If you want to play the guitar like George Harrison, then you'll have to start with these guys, because they're the guitarists that he was listening to when he was starting out."

When I told Uncle Lloyd that I didn't have a record player at home, he loaned me an old one that he had.

Eventually, Uncle Lloyd got a new guitar and neglected "the old one".

It was in a bad way when I saw it again years later -- rusty, broken strings, a broken tailpiece, covered in smelly green mold and buried among a bunch of basement junk.

It hurt to see the first guitar I fell in love with as a pup buried and forgotten.

I asked if I could maybe buy it, and he gave it to me. I've since cleaned and fixed it up enough that I can use it.

I wanted a guitar just like this way back then, and today that very same guitar is mine. Sometimes dreams do come true!

Thanks, Uncle Lloyd, for everything, and especially for this guitar. I'll continue to play and cherish it.

A Crossfolf Camera Presentation.