The Guitar Man

What do Elvis Presley, Tiny Tim, Hank Williams, Gene Autry, Johnnie Cash, Neil Young, The Smothers Brothers, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Ricky Nelson, Merle Haggard, Joan Baez, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Erest Tubb, Roy Rogers, and Jim Welker (my dad) have in common? ANSWER...They all play Martin guitars.

We woke up to more rain. We drove to 3 covered bridges. 2 were pretty good...the 3rd wasn't even worth getting out of the car for.

We were on our way to the Martin guitar factory. We went through Bethlehem, PA. I stopped and asked for a room at the inn. They took one look at my appearance, and sent me to the stables. We proceeded to Nazereth for the tour. I stopped and asked for directions...but was rejected. (Bible joke.)

Actually..Mandy, my GPS girl...took us right to the spot. Just like in a good western...our tour was for 12 o'clock high.

What a nice tour. Individual earphones with battery packs...so you could hear your guide through all of the factory noise. Who knew there were 300 steps to make a guitar? And...we saw most of them.

Cheapest guitar? 1300 bucks. Most expensive? 100,000 dollars. On my Flickr page...I have a picture of a woman in the process of working on a 13,000 dollar guitar. Can you imagine how they handle such an instrument? Frightening.

The workers were non-union. My sister asked. Good wages and benefits...plus they can buy 2 guitars a year for half-price.

My dad strummed a few chords...then suddenly jumped off the stool, and broke into a Chuck Berry hop and skip across the floor. He was too quick for me to photograph. He finished by playing Tiptoe through the Tulips on the uke. It was at that point where we acted like we didn't know him.

Spent the night in Springfield, Massachusetts.