[mhw48]

In April, at the height of the pandemic in NYC, the city had shut down except for the near constant wail of ambulance sirens. My wife and I were ensconced in our apartment, working from home, with only an electronic link to other humans. Many of our neighbors had fled the city, and those few of us still here would eye each other warily in the lobby. We couldn’t even visit our daughter, although she is less than ten miles away from us, working on her PhD at Columbia University.

Every day we’d watch Governor Cuomo recite the latest horrific statistics: the rising numbers of infections and deaths since the previous day. On our very infrequent forays outside we’d walk past the hospital two blocks from our home where refrigerator trucks had been set up as a temporary morgue.

I consoled myself, as probably many of you did, with playing guitar.

In the midst of this catastrophe I had a long phone conversation with Nick Kukich of Franklin Guitar Company. Due to three cancellations from pandemic anxious clients, a build slot had become available. I own a mahogany Franklin (12 Fret Dread), which I love. It’s very balanced, airy, less dry than other mahogany guitars I’ve had, but still with a mahogany “character.” I wanted something with a similar sound that would complement the Dread and I elected to go with Nick’s jumbo.

My commission is his 700th build!