The story was it was 1994 and I'd just gotten laid off my job as the Hospital Medical Records Administrator for Kaiser Foundation Hospital. It was such a blessing because they'd laid off the three managers under me and I had three offices on different sides of a hallway and three separate computer systems to manage. I was running around trying to get everyone's job done and getting ready to quit. This way I got a severance package. Up until then I'd been playing Don's guitars, a Martin D35 and an old Goya 000 mahogany. Nice but I wanted my own guitar. So I drove down to Guitar Center on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood and started trying different guitars. The sales guy we knew from previous visits and he could actually play a guitar like crazy and make it sound like something. I'm not a great guitar player. So I was pretty focused on maple and I'd gotten it down to 3; A rosewood Martin, a maple Taylor, and this Guild D65S. When I played 'em I favored the Guild. Then I left the "good guitar" room and cleared my head a little and came back sat facing away from the sales guy and he kept picking up different guitars in random order and playing different types of music on them. He and Don kept score. So when I said okay enough, I swiveled around on my stool and said, "Which one?" They pointed to the Guild and said, "You picked this one every time." So, that decided I looked around a bit and the $1100 price tag started gnawing at me (I was suddenly unemployed) and then wussed out and grabbed a Guild D4 off the wall and played it really quick and said, "I'll take this one." Took it home and played a bit more. Went to sleep and woke up and walked downstairs to start the coffee going and as I came down the stairs I saw that plain little D4 sitting there and I just stopped dead and went, "OH HELL NO!! That's not the guitar I want!!" I put the coffee on and when Don came down I said "Hey were going back to GC to get the guitar I really want." And that's what happened. I walked in with the case and that same sales guy said, "You want the blonde, don't you?" I did, and that was 26 years ago. One of the best sounding guitars I've ever played.
About a year ago I had an unfortunate accident after a joint replacement. The doc had put me on Ambien because I was having trouble sleeping. I took it one night and it was a sleepwalking disaster. I wouldn't settle and kept getting up and playing guitars and Don would walk me around the yard and then coax me back to bed and I just wouldn't settle. Finally, I got up and grabbed this guitar and promptly fell off the chair and cracked the top. Two good sized cracks in the soundboard and broke a brace loose. I don't even remember any of this!! So stupid and I was so angry with myself. It went immediately off to Tom Jacobs (Fixit) in FL and he did an amazing job putting it back right again. Those are the little lines you can see in the one photo of the top. But it's stable and fixed and he did an amazing job and I never used Ambien ever again. Sounds the same as ever.
So that's my first guitar. And Glenn, yes both my Guilds have the Art Deco Knobs which are also used on the Imperial Tuners and my string winder (Ernie Ball Power Peg) has one larger cutout that fits on the knobs, but not well. They always want to go off to the side and YES it's a pain in the ASS to wind them! Every other guitar has normal knobs and fits in the little cup and winds perfectly centered. So they're pretty, but they are a pain when you're changing strings! But I suffer cuz they're pretty. The DV72 has silver ones. That guitars is next for cleaning and strings.
