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The gift of banjo.

Hi all,

I haven't had a 5 String of substance since 1980. I quit picking banjo professionally around then and turned to guitar to support myself. Every time I'd get the notion to buy a 5 string and get back into it, something would come up.

I was given a little Goodtime at a guitar workshop I performed around 10 years ago but the neck got broken so I haven't been able to do much in the way of serious playing with it. I would borrow my buddy Russ' Liberty from time to time to do special shows, and even used it for a few banjo lessons on YouTube for my guitar instruction channel.

I have had trouble getting free videos finished because I don't want to be a louse and keep Russ' banjo for too long, so it has been a hard thing to find time for everything.

I called Russ on his birthday last week to say hello and to my surprise, things worked the other way around and he gave me a birthday gift. He gave me his Liberty Quadrille. 

That banjo has been my favorite for years. I used to keep a Liberty catalog on my nightstand as a teenage boy, and look at the Quadrille before I turned in at night. I can't say how overwhelmed I am. This is a wonderful gift.

Russ isn't giving up picking. He has two beautiful Great Lakes banjos, one of which was just refinished. Still, I have never seen such a beautiful charitable act of kindness, and am dumbfounded.

I had actually gotten calls from a couple of banjo manufacturers who wanted to work out a deal, having me use their banjos on my YouTube channel in exchange for free advertising. I also had several generous folks from this forum and YouTube contact me, offering to give me a banjo to use for lessons, but I really didn't want to use something that I wasn't happy with, and would not have felt good about using the Liberty again.

I'm glad I waited. The Liberty is my favorite banjo in the world and always has been.

I don't know how many of you folks have friends like this, but I am more than blessed.

Thanks buddy,

Rob

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