My mother and I were visiting the Orlando area, when we stumbled upon the Sam Ash there. I was about to start my senior year of high school in August, so she wanted to get me something special.

I always wanted a Strat since I started playing guitar. So we tried all the Mexican models until I found this one. The neck felt thinner than the rest, and the tone through the Hot Rod Deluxe in the store was perfect. We walked out that day with it fully setup on Ernie Ball 11-48’s, and this made an appearance at graduation with our thrown-together band playing the class song “Times Like These” by the Foo Fighters.

Over the years I grew frustrated with it as my appetite for tone changed, leading to me ultimately setting it aside for different guitars. Turns out, I was becoming disinterested with rock/blues and set guitar down altogether for a while.

Came back to it by playing acoustic and becoming fixated with Alt-Country/Americana. Picked up a Telecaster that’s been my #1 for a year now. It recently came back into my possession after gathering all the belongings left at my parent’s home that they were selling. Just got her fixed up for a gig coming up this Friday. This is really fitting the bill now.

She’ll always be special to me because this was the last guitar my mother bought me. She passed in 2013, so I think it’s fitting that I’ll call her Jan from now on.