It was sometime in the last week of October in 2005 when my wife Barbara and I were celebrating my birthday, at a concert by mandolinist David Grisman. Now, Barbara wasn’t familiar with David’s music, but I had heard him as part of the bluegrass band Old and In The Way, which featured Gerry Garcia and John Kahn from the Grateful Dead, along with fiddle legend Vassar Clements and former guitarist and lead singer for Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, Peter Rowan. I played a CD of their music for Barbara and she liked what she heard.

The concert was being held at the Strathmore in Bethesda, a venue neither of us had been to before, but boy were we surprised with our seats. The tickets were for spaces in the balcony and since they were the “cheap seats” we were expecting a far away view of the stage from the rear of the auditorium.

 After taking the elevator to the second floor we noticed the section number on our tickets did not match any of the signs in the back of the auditorium, but those in the front, where we had seats overlooking the stage, which was a seating arrangement as good if not better than those on the front row as we could see everything the band was doing. When the ensemble changed from the David Grisman Quintet to a quartet the quality of music did not suffer and continued at a lively upbeat tempo that had Barbara and I dancing in our seats and David Grisman and several of the band members looking up at us with a smile. It was great show that got even better when in response to the standing ovation the band received, David introduced his teacher and one of the all time greatest mandolin players, Frank Wakefield, who along with David played a mandolin duet to close the show.

Now, I had been playing the guitar, not very well, since childhood and knew nothing about the mandolin, but by the time the night was over I knew I wanted to get my hands on one, but there was one obstacle, money. I had not shopped for a musical instrument in quite a few years and when I did a search on eBay for mandolins I was in shock. The f-style mandolin like the one I saw David playing weren’t hundreds, but thousands, or I should say tens of thousands, for a Gibson like the several David had on stage. Now what was I to do?

There was an A model mandolin, which was cheaper, sometimes less then a hundred, but I didn’t like the shape of the body, nor that single oval hole in the center of the top, which reminded me of the guitar I so much wanted to leave behind; so, I kept searching thinking there was something I missed.

But before I could continue my search my health gave me something more important to think about. I was becoming fatigued more easily and my mobility had decreased to the point I was having trouble walking. All warning signs that my Multiple Sclerosis was coming back and sending me into a relapse, which became evident as the days went on and the symptoms progressed until I was bedridden. I knew I had to find something to occupy my days. Enter the mandolin.

When I began my search again for an f-style mandolin I discovered several that were A-style, but had f shaped sound holes on the base and treble sides of the top just like their f-style cousins, but were much less costly, so I bought one. It arrived several days later, which was just in time for me to begin practicing the songs I had found on the website Mandozine. Between the easy to follow tablature of the beginner tunes and the advice I received from the folks on the Mandolin Café I began picking melodies that even though they were played very slowly did resemble the music I heard on the MIDI soundtracks.

         This little wooden instrument with eight strings had changed me life. I practiced for hours everyday until my fingertips, which were just starting to develop calluses, became so sore I was not able to push the strings down on the fret board hard enough for the note to ring clearly; but even so, the mandolin and the inspiration I received from watching David Grisman play it had helped me forget about the MS and all the pain and weakness I was experiencing.

Soon after the relapse ended and I was well enough to walk again I joined a jam session of bluegrass musicians where my skills continued to develop.