My first guitar (Revised)

You know where this will lead; late nights, bad girls, smokin', drinkin', druggin' and fornicatin'. Arrests and guilt by association. Tennitis, ruined back, carpal tunnel and bad habits. Why would you give that thing to a kid wearing a beenie hat?

That was in Huntington, West By God Virginia- now it's a parking lot at Marshall University.

Actually I never imagined I would be where I'm at today. My dad and older brothers were SO much better than myself at playing guitar, piano and any other instrument they picked up that my first dream was to be a radio DJ. I figured I could bring the joy of music to the masses without the embarrassing learning curve.

At the same time I've always had a knack for hooking up shit. I wired my stereo into my older brothers PA system which consisted of a Peavey 4 channel "head" and two ElectroVoice "column" speakers with two 15" speakers and a high frequency horn in each cabinet.

Next thing I knew I was setting it up for school dances and I did get my job on the radio at 1060 WAMT Titusville from a "very reluctant to hire a teenager" program director whose name escapes me, most radio people have "stage names" anyhow and I think his might have been Alan W. Jackson, funny how shit pops into your mind sometimes.

I've always just been Luke Sommer Glenn because it's unique to it self.

We had a lot of fun doing that. I say we because I would have to leave right before the end of the dance to get to my shift at the radio station on time and my buddy Joel would finish off the night and pack up my dad's '77 Chevrolet Malibu Classic station wagon a.k.a the pie wagon because it was big enough to get a piece and I would haul ass in his late 60's Buick out to the "swamp" where the radio station was located.

Out on SR 46 west of Mims, Fl situated in a cow pasture* with five towers steering the AM crackling airwaves around Brevard county.

Hello Kathy B. from Melbourne or was it Eau Gallie?

True to my life change is always imminent and the radio station changed formats and went "automated" thereby eliminating all on air personalities. Damn it man! Replaced by machines!

The babysitter job meant you recorded the weather on an 8-track looking thing called a cart and stuck it into the machine and it would cycle through rudely and unprofessionally cutting songs off to play commercials and my pre-recorded weather, no more request line, no more smooth transitions between songs, commercials and the news and no one to tell you the artist and song name.

So I decided to go to tech school with a couple of buddies figuring I could get a job repairing the machines that had replaced me. I spent way more time playing guitar than I did studying which would serve me well throughout my life more so than the degree I received in electronics. Fucking day jobs just didn't cut it for me, it made my music suffer and what everyone else called a hobby I saw as an opportunity to see the USA.

I never really wanted fame and fortune and all the hassles that come with it, I just wanted to play music and party and see the world besides drug testing was a new thing then and I wasn't willing to give up my freedom for $3.25 an hour doing soul draining work that had no meaning.

Looking at that picture now It kind of seems like maybe it was meant to be but I have my own notions and a possible, as good as any explanation out there but that is for another time.

My first real guitar, 1986 Black LP Custom

*(does anyone remember what grows in cow pastures? Upcoming subject)