[oldE]

A guitar journey.
I think my first guitar was a plastic Reliable, given to me one Christmas when I was about 9. Predictably it eventually cracked at the neck-body " joint" . It was about a year after that when I found the carcass of a discarded guitar at the dump and was able to drag home the neck, fretboard and top. I cut a back out of plywood paneling and bent sides in a crude form. My mistake ( other than thinking I could reconstruct a guitar) was using the wrong glue, so it came apart as soon as it was done.
Some time after that, I suspect my father came across the sad remnants of my efforts and came to the conclusion that this boy really wanted a guitar. He purchased a used instrument which was probably typical of an entry level guitar in that the action was high and there was actually dry rot in the top.
That one got traded in a few years later for a Kent acoustic. It was cheap, which is not something to really recommend, but it went to university with me. It got retired a year later when I bought my first high quality instrument. I removed the strings and somewhere in our photos there is a picture of an orange tabby kitten peering out of the sound hole. Fifteen years ago I gave it to a luthier friend of mine who narrowed the neck and converted it to an octave mandolin. It was good to see it have a second life.
Best
Les