My friend Lloyd has only ever sold one guitar, and I bought it. We met online through the Blues Guitar Unleashed forum, which we were both using in our quests to become the amazingly excellent blues guitar players we are today. Since that seminal transaction, we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well through our online interactions. We have met in person once or twice, and we have tried and failed to meet in person at least one other time. This time, it was relatively simple for Sue and me to adjust our northbound route between Florida and Vermont to include Monroe, NC, which (not coincidentally) is where Lloyd and his wife Maurette have chosen to make their home.
One reason that the guitar purchase and sale is so notable is that Lloyd owns at least 30 guitars and he’s likely owned a dozen others over the time I’ve know him. Those others were given away, traded, loaned, or rebuilt and redeployed to somewhere or someone where they were needed, but never sold. My beloved Taylor acoustic was a different beast and it has a different story – and that’s as much of it as I’ll tell here.
Lloyd is known in several online spaces as “Paparaptor.” He is a moderator of the BGU forum, of course, as well as an up-and-coming Studio One software guru. I didn’t fully appreciate this before, but he is actually most famous (or notorious) for having provided half of the genes for Egoraptor (Lloyd and Maurette’s youngest son), a true internet celebrity who invented a genre of entertainment that is incomprehensible to those of my generation – although I can easily envision myself having become thoroughly invested had I been born a few decades later than I was. I won’t try to describe it (google can do a much better job), just don’t burrow too deep into the rabbit hole!
Maurette (aka Mamaraptor) founded the Healing Horse Therapy Center, which she operates on their farmstead. There are five resident therapists (i.e., horses) who live at the center and are specially trained to work very effectively with a variety of people with a number of mental health issues. Foremost among these are veterans with PTSD, also youths with autism, ADHD, or other learning disabilities.
We’d not met Maurette before, and we’re so glad we had this opportunity to get to know her and to see what she does with these magnificent animals. We also got to help with the daily barn chores which, despite their reputation, turn out to be a fair amount of fun and rewarding to accomplish.
As for music, I had a great time jamming with Lloyd the day we arrived. Sue sat in for a while on the drum set that Lloyd’s older son keeps at the home studio. The next day, Lloyd and I spent some time going through his guitar collection, testing a box of pedals our mutual friend Barry had sent over, and recording a precedent-setting, joint Virtual Jam Room submission for the BGU forum. (You may safely disregard that last clause if it make no sense to you. If you do follow the link, our bit is between about 1:50 and 4:01.)
Finally, I’d be remiss not to mention the quality time spent with Annie and Mabel, who were so very warm and accepting of our presence in their household.
Here are a few more photos, if you’re interested.
Was so wonderful to have you both to our little farm! Love the photos and the conversation (Sue)! Thank you for the lovely photos!
It was a pleasure to have you visit us. You are welcome back any time for as long as you can stand us. It was a joy to have another live body (or two) in the music room to play along with. Jam tracks are great, but they only go so far. I’m relatively sure that Annie and Mabel would also be overjoyed to see you here again. I think Mabel is a little depressed that she’s not getting her belly rubs on a regular basis. Thank you for visiting and come back soon!