“I remember the day on one of those drives when I was 13 and dad asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said an Atari.

He said, ‘Come on, Neal, you can do better than that. I always see you with your radio playing music, do you want more records? Do you want to play an instrument? Anything but Atari y’know? It’s just going to collect dust after a few months. I want to get you something useful.’ I sheepishly said, ‘I like guitar’ and his eyes lit up and he said, ‘Sure! i’ll get you a guitar, at least you’ll be learning something.’

So that was it, my life was set right there. I remember the exact place where we were when he said it. We were passing Oak Ridge Reservoir, in between Oak Ridge Road and Route 23 in north Jersey.”

— Neal Casal