A Message from George, Claire, Lindsay and the
Maple Street Staff

To say that we are enduring challenging times feels quite repetitive these days, and yet it continues to prove true.  I’ve recently begun describing my life during all this as a “temporal smear,” as there are seemingly few significant events or encounters punctuating the day-to-day to give me much of a mooring in reality. No doubt there are a great many people in the world who share my sense of being stuck in some strange waking dream. Yet, for anyone who might doubt the intensity of the turbulence, the developments that have led to nationwide unrest over the past few weeks serve to illustrate that the myriad problems confronting us are quite real.  

As some of you may have learned, our store was robbed late Friday night during the protests here in Atlanta.  The loss of roughly one dozen electric guitars (see below for a list) and the damage to our building are indeed unfortunate, infuriating, and profoundly demoralizing, but it could have been so much worse!  Many local businesses, along with many others in the country, experienced extensive damage and/or total loss, and are subsequently in desperate need of our collective support.   With this in mind, we consider ourselves very lucky to have sustained a relatively modest financial hit and brief (albeit intense!) uptick in anxiety.  As is always the case with a theft, the aggravation associated with the physical loss is somewhat fleeting, whereas the feeling of violation and the erosion of one's faith in people and society is much more persistent.  But, as scrappy small business owners, we will do as we always have and keep on keeping on with an optimistic eye to the future--for, as my mother has reminded me throughout life, tomorrow is another day.  

Along this line, we wanted to take this opportunity to express our tremendous gratitude for the outpouring of sympathy and support that we have received from all of you, our customers and friends—we are truly humbled.  We would also like to confirm that we have remained operational throughout this ordeal; however, we are still maintaining reduced hours (11AM – 4PM, with curbside drop-off and pick-up available until 6PM), and our showroom remains closed (though we are accepting appointments).  For anyone interested in brushing up their skills, our teachers are also still offering remote lessons via Zoom and the like.  Clearly, and as many of you have likewise expressed, we are looking forward to the day when we can resume our normal business operations, and we promise to keep you posted on this front!  In the meantime, we thank you for your continued patience with our current practices, and we wish you all good health, along with the unique comfort and happiness that only music can provide.

• George, Claire, Lindsay, and the staff at Maple Street Guitars