I got access to a plastic toy guitar with plastic frets and a chord book. I worked hard to prepare to use it to accompany my brothers and me as we went carolling around the neighborhood that Christmas Eve. We were well-received. I've been playing and/or singing most of my life.

The serial house-to-house caroling when I was five must be the smallest audience I've played to. The biggest was either the first ever DC ELCA Synod Gathering contemporary service in Roanoke, VA, in 2009 or a tent service on the grounds of the Washington Monument subbing for Paul Wilbur with Israel's Hope back in the '80s. Both were around a thousand people or so.

When Jimmy Dean's band was playing Glen Echo Park regularly in the mid '50s, they would sometimes come "practice" on the grounds outside the elementary school behind my house. They wanted to attract the young ladies but they attracted us kids, too. Roy Clark up close even back then was magical and motivating. I hope we didn't pester them too much. :-)

These days, doing music as Song A' The Broadsworde Ministries, I am on the Worship Team at Ahavat Yeshua Congregation in Washington, DC.