It was my junior year of college during my winter break.  I simply said to myself, "I think I am going to learn to play the guitar".  I then went to Dave's Guitar Shop in La Crosse WI, looked around and everything there was way to nice and expensive for my liking.  So, I headed north to a place called SSE Music, where their motto is "SSE Music, the last letters in La Crosse".  Going inside some nice long haired employee met me and asked me if he could help me out with anything.  I told him that I was interested in getting a guitar that day.  He showed me what he had in the selection of acoustic guitars.  Then, I picked the guitar I would later purchase for $369.99, and noticed its fine pearl inlay and the beautiful wood that made the instrument.  It sounded good to me, back then they all sounded a bit the same and I really didn't know what to look for. I brought it home and started tinkering around with my new guitar. Before I forget, I should tell you it was a Washburn acoustic guitar.  Very pretty to look at and overall sounds pretty sweet, as they say.  It now belongs to my growing up neighbor tough guy/hockey instructor/old boss/fellow coworker Ryan Cowen.

     Now in that time I had that Washburn I played with fellow picker Joe Kukuk, back then fellow student/these days fellow neighbor, who dug the blues, folk, rock and good old country twang.  He showed me the chords and little licks of songs. I practiced pretty hard and pretty soon, I was sounding better than when I first started.  I also played with fellow picker Dave Pedersen, fellow student back then/future rock star today, who dug Zeppelin, and pretty much anyone who was real good at their guitar chops. 

     During that spring semester at school I had a class called Human Motor Behavior, which was taught by a man named Mark Zmudy.  Mark was this guy from Denver, Colorado, who ended up getting his master's degree and then teaching for several years at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse.  And during those several years, I had him for my instructor more than twice, and we decided to get together to play some guitar.  The time was well spent so we decided to play pretty often after that, and he taught me real easy songs, mostly Grateful Dead tunes, Mark was a big deadhead as they say.  So this one night Mark and I were at this restaurant called Seven Bridges and they were having a fundraiser.  Seven bands for seven dollars and I think the beer was real cheap or even free.  The bands were all pretty much two guitars playing folk songs.  Mark said to me,     

     "You know what Brumm, we could be playing at this event".  So I responded,

          "Maybe we still can!"  So I asked one of the guitar players who was do up in an hour or so if my friend Mark and I could play a song before them.  They thought it would be a great idea and let us play a song to start them out.  This was it for me, my first debut for a live audience in a bar.  I was pretty nervous so I started drinking a bit faster to calm the nerves and believe it or not I think it worked.  We were handed the guitars and are friends who were also with us started cheering and "getting pumped up".  We played "Women are Smarter" a song which pretty much describes itself in its title.  Are friends were dancing all around and singing and I pretty sure "loving it".  After the song was over, the manager came over to us and said,

          "You two have to be playing at this bar".  We thought it was a great idea so we were going to get back to him with a date and book the show.

          "The ESS Jamboree", was the name of the show we were going to play.  Mark and I, on stage, playing a show for our friends and family.  We advertised the event throughout the campus and hoped for the best.  The best part about it was that my family was all there and my brother Davy flew from California just for the show, talk about a roady.  Mark's parents from Denver came out too, it was awesome.  Unfortunately, Mark had become ill just before the show and pretty much lost his voice so I had to do lots of the singing at the show.  My singing career started about 6 months before the show when Mark told me "I think you should try and sing that".  Before that I never really sang anything except for when no one was around like in my car driving.  I agreed to try and found it just over bearable.  I didn't think I sounded good at all, but Mark kept encouraging me to keep doing it and I really am glad I have done that. 

          Now back to the show, there were, we guessed, about 300 people who came to the show.  My old roommate/current Sante Fe Acupuncturist, Matt Warnke, started things off by introducing Mark and I.  He did a real nice job.  Lots of my friends from my home town of Fredonia, WI came up to see the show.  They were and still are very supportive, I thank you much.  There was a cover charge of 8 dollars that night, but it provided the music and free tap beer.  There was a lot of beer that was drank that night.  And so, when the show ended I was doing a lot of thinking about the whole thing and decided I was going to do that type of thing more often, and I did. 

Thanks for reading chapter two is on the way.