Back last summer, I got a message from a guy who heard me say in a radio interview that I was excited about all kinds of people playing this guitar - not just famous ones. He wrote to say that he was not famous but definitely wanted to play the guitar.

His name was Don Ablett and we began a correspondence. It came out through the conversation that he was a high school principal in Brampton by day and a guitar enthusiast the rest of the time - even with a CD to his credit. I told him that I was anxious to get the guitar into schools and he absolutely ran with the idea. We set up a date for a visit - which happened today - about 2 or 3 months ago. In the interim, the teachers at his school had been using the stories that are in the guitar materials as a platform into their subjects. And that's just the beginning.

In fact, Don set up two school visits for us today. Doug brought his son Gabriel to help out with the portraits and Kathy Hill came along to assist as well. We arrived early this morning at Chinguacousy Secondary School where I did a presentation in the cafeteria for about 300 bleary eyed kids. Don had been vice-principal at this school so he was on hand to play a tune and to introduce Will Bennett - the student who played for his peers.

After that, we headed down to the music room where Shawn Abedin's guitar class were gathered to get their portraits done.

Then, it was a short hop kitty-corner to North Peel Secondary School where Don is now principal. We were just stunned and amazed entering the school to see all the banners and posters the students had made marking our visit. While Doug, Kathy and Gabriel set up the photo system in the Cafeteria, Don took me on a tour of the school. One class had created a mural of their school composed of pictures from the building's 30-year history - inspired by the Six String Nation idea; another class had created four 8-foot banners of the guitar based on images from the website - fully annotated with blue cards from each of the students attached to the bottom articulating their favourite piece of material; in the Library were several displays outlining the histories within the guitar and special book selections related to stories in the guitar were featured. I confess I was just blown away - this was all way more than I had imagined. And there was more to come: while we were in the library, the P.A. came on announcing that the "guitar cookies" were ready and would be on sale in the Cafe at lunch. The culinary arts class (who also made our lunch) had made cookies with the Six String Nation logo on them to raise money!

In Don's office, he showed me stacks of reports and essays the students had done for their courses built around stories from the guitar. I just can't get over the amount of effort everyone put in.

We did photos - mostly groups of kids and teachers and school staff - and then went into the gym where the aforementioned banners had been hoisted to the ceiling. I did my Keynote presentation and then there were some performances. The drama group did a reading - each student taking a voice of one of the provinces or territories and talking about the pieces - a student named Eric played it and then Don and his musical partner did a couple of songs - ending with "I've Been Everywhere" by Hank Snow while the computer ran the slide show of portraits on the wall behind them. It was almost too much to take - I was just so moved by the whole thing.

Still glowing from the visit, Doug, Gabriel and Kathy headed back to the City while I followed Don to his home where he and his wife Carol-Ann had planned a guitar party for that evening. They gave me a glass of wine and let me use their office to do a little work and then we had a lovely dinner of pot-stickers before everyone started to arrive.

The party was terrific - very friendly people and the guitar got passed around a fair bit (along with several other guitars). There was much music making and I had a great conversation with Gregg Lawless, who wants to use the guitar for a show at some point.

If future school visits are even half as good as today's experience, I'll be extremely happy. 

Special thanks to Don Ablett, Carol-Ann Michaelson, Shawn Abedin, Will Caldwell, Will Bennett, Eric and the staff and students of Chinguacousy and North Peel Secondary Schools in Brampton Ontario.