my new (old) ukulele

for a long time i thought it would be cool to play a ukulele.

then i started listening to this talented swede. hmmm...love.

when i mentioned this to my friend jen, (what a great name, eh?) she said, "hey, i have a ukulele you can borrow." yay! said i. it was a baritone ukulele, so basically the bottom four strings of a classical guitar. which meant easy to play since i didn't have to learn any new tuning. i played and played. i even played at church last week. weeee!

THEN my dad told me that my grandma was sending him my great-grandfather's old ukulele's, and that he wanted me to have one of them. and look what the UPS guy brought me today. yay!

here's a blurry pic (taken by my six year old in admittedly bad light) of me messing with it. i say "messing" as opposed to "playing" because this is a soprano ukulele and thus all the chords are different. still.

it's in rough shape, but i sort of like that about it. when i hold it i imagine crusty sailors with tattooed chests singing "a whale of a tale" while hanging from a ships rigging. i know i should probably picture hawaiians or something, but i don't. just crusty sailors. oh, and this guy.

it's fun to play. and i'm excited i get a family heirloom. i never knew my great-grandfather, so i like to imagine him playing it and being happy it stayed in the family.