52 pick-up

I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend! We had gorgeous weather and, as you can see, lots of eye candy!

Our Saturday morning was spent at the one-and-only True Tone Music in beautiful Santa Monica, California.

Even I, who unfortunately let my guitar playing skills wane years ago, admit to pangs of guitar coveting here. 

Saturday was my husband John's 52ond birthday, and True Tone was his outing of choice. Two weeks earlier Davy had picked out a really lovely mandolin here for his 19th birthday, and it needed some service. So what better day to bring it in than John's birthday? And of course in the meantime, he got to play the Special Edition Gretsch guitar both he and Davy have been drooling over for quite some time. Is this a HAPPY FACE or what :)   

Both guys got to play it for a while. In the end though, John settled for a new capo for $20 instead of the $2400 Gretsch. I'm thinking that was a pretty wise choice. I'm sure the boys will end up with that Gretsch at some point - they have practically every other make of guitar known to man - but all in good time. The Mouse's orthodontist will certainly thank us. And the Mouse's teeth will look better after Phase 2 than that guitar would look up on our wall.  

You know how everyone has their own version of what they think Heaven will be like? Well, I can't help but think John's Heaven is going to have a lot of guitar walls like this. Oh, it will have all the usual things like gardens and sunshine, blah, blah, blah. But just like my Luna will have fields of grass as far as the eye can see, with bunnies to chase, and trees to rest under? John will have guitar walls as far as they eye can see. Guitar Heaven.

A close-up of the Gretsches - the light & dark orange ones are the Brian Setzer signature models... VERY COOL

Last but certainly not least, stacks upon stacks of Orange Amps. I've never seen so many in one place at one time. The cream of the crop of the amplifier kingdom, coveted by Walker boys young and old. Which is ironic because I'd have to sell all 3 boys to purchase one. And speaking of boys, I realize the Mouse is not in any of these photos. I wanted to get a pic of him playing the electric stand-up bass you see in the center of these Orange amps. But he was no where to be found. I think he was upstairs wreaking some type of havoc in one of the practice rooms - I really didn't want to know what he was up to. It often involves a lot of money or bad smells.

Anyway, John ended up having a great birthday. I love you old man - hee hee :)