There was nothing to be done about it on the spot; the group
had to leave and fast, and Roger was forced to borrow a lesser dobro
for the upcoming performances. It bore little resemblance to his R. Q.
Jones handmade masterpiece, at the time the finest available. But
Roger's instrument was special beyond its name. From one of his many
... national dobro competitions, he had won a
sound chamber cover plate, engraved with the date, 1977, the only one
made that year. His instrument also had a tortoise shell bridge, a
unique feature that Roger found produced better sound. But now, all
was lost and what followed for Roger Williams was a very dark period of
his professional life.

Returning from the tour that summer, Roger checked with the airline
and the airport repeatedly, but to no avail. Once, there was a rumor
that the instrument might have mistakenly gone to Istanbul.
Dejectedly, Roger tried to come to terms with the full ramifications of
his loss. From now on, everything he played would come up short, and
at most, could only garner second-best status. His R.Q. Jones had been
his inspiration and his friend. At night, lying in bed in a state of
twilight consciousness, he would wonder where it was-even try to send a
kind of telepathic message to it to see if he could feel some response.
This practice led to an ongoing "dialogue" with his lost dobro and
it was this dialogue that prevented Roger from giving up hope completely.

Late that summer, the name of Jerry Douglas came up once again in
Roger's life. At the time, Jerry was having special dobro accessories
made in Nashville, and Roger-always trying to achieve better
sound-wanted to try one of them out on his now second-best instrument.
Lacking Jerry's phone number, Roger called fellow dobro aficionado, Jim
Heffernan in New Jersey believing that he might have it. He did
indeed, and in the course of the phone conversation, Roger related the
recent loss of his R.Q. Jones, something that could only be fully
appreciated by a peer.

Hearing the sad news, Jim Heffernan said, "That's funny, I've got an R.Q. Jones
sitting right here. It was just shipped to me from a music store in Amherst, Massachusetts so I could try it out. The thing is, it's got a tortoise shell bridge and it's
not exactly what I'm after. I'm driving it up there tomorrow to return
it cause they told me if I don't take it, they've already got another
buyer."Roger felt his body temperature go up. He wrote down the directions
and phone number for the music store in Amherst. He told Jim he would meet
him there, then called the store and told them all the details surrounding the loss
of his R.Q. Jones and begged them to hold back on the sale of this instrument
until he got there. If it was his, he could prove it...

It was a man with a mission that got up in the dark that late August
morning and drove from New Hampshire to Massachusetts to shake hands
with Jim Heffernan in an Amherst parking lot. It was a man who had the
sensation that he was watching from outside his body when Jim opened
the trunk of his car to reveal an all too familiar guitar case. When
he opened the case, there, resting in a velvety shrine was the R.Q.
Jones dobro with the tortoise shell bridge. As though in a
dream-state, Roger leaned over and squinted at the cover plate. When
he stood up, emotion blocked his speech, for he had seen what he
already knew would be there: "1977" engraved on the plate he had won
that year, the only one of its kind in the world.

To this day, Roger doesn't know where his dobro had been those dark
months. What he does know, and he doesn't mind if you doubt it, is
that the dialogue he opened between his instrument and himself was what
started its progress toward him. He had faith that the strings of fate
would have these partners reunited no matter what it took, and through
an uncanny sequence of events, those strings are still playing today
through the artistry and virtuosity of Roger Williams, the dobro man.