Stan Hitchcock-View From My Brothers House-September 20, 2013

Being back in the Ozarks, with family is as good as it always is. Since I am the only brother that left to wander, with a guitar and some old country songs, while my other two brothers, Dan and Sam, stayed home and did good, that means that I am the only one that can come back home.

Been doing this since I was 18 years old...leaving and coming back, I mean. Leaving in 1954 to join the Navy, going to see the world from a porthole, taking my guitar and all my other possessions in a sea bag, over my shoulder. It's not that I expected to be gone for the rest of my life...it just kinda turned out that way.

A guitar is a strange companion to follow around the World, for it will lead you into situations that you never dreamed of when you first started out. I had never been out of the Ozarks when I first left for the Navy...one year later I was doing a show for the British Army Hospital in Kowloon, across the harbor from Hong Kong, with my shipmates who had formed the Bryce Canyon Troubadours on board ship. As we took the boat across the harbor, my escort for the evening was the British Ambassadors daughter, holding on to one arm, while my other arm held my J-45 Gibson in its case, as she looked up at me and said, "I love you American's Country Music." Shoot, man, I wish those girls from Pleasant Hope High, who kept wanting me to sing "Pop" songs, could hear that.

Course, I was still a skinny, big eared kid from the hills, but by golly, I was now a world traveler....and I was starting to really like it. stan