At twelve years old, I played the guitar in my 6^th grade graduation and moved on to junior high school where I had my first real band. The band was called the "Catalinas", named after the drummer's family Pontiac. This eventually was a real band, but had a strange beginning. My parents had bought me an electric guitar from Montgomery Wards Department store, (candy apple red with white lightning bolts), called an Airline. (Sears had Silvertone and Wards had Airline). The drummer had found an old snare drum in a friend's garage so he decided to be a drummer. His parents bought him a full set of drums and he actually became a real good drummer. He is still playing down in Texas to this day. His parents were the ones that always gave us a place to rehearse. They would open up their house to us any day of the week. They loved music, and they always knew where we were when we were rehearsing.

The man who lived next door to the drummer was a city police officer. Sometime around 1963 he was in charge of the security at the "Joe Freeman Coliseum" for a Rolling Stones concert. They only had 300 people at the concert. We did not get to go, but he brought the Stones over to his house while we were rehearsing one day and we got to go next door and meet them. (Brian Jones was still in the band). They looked and acted like a rough bunch to us innocent young schoolboys. The Catalina's bass player and lead guitar player each made their own guitars as a woodshop project in school. I taught these guys everything they knew and everything I knew about guitar, and they were actually very good at playing what they were shown.  Read on...