I don't know if this qualifies as road worn or not. These are pictures of my first ukulele, a Makala. When I bought it I promised myself that I would play it for a year before I bought anything else, just to make sure that I was going to stick with it. That first year I dragged it to New York City and played it in Washington Square, I hauled it down to Puerto Rico and back to Iowa twice, and in Iowa I took it in my bicycle panier out with me two or three times a week. After my year, I upgraded, but continued to use my Makala as a knock around. After a couple of years, the Makala stayed in Puerto Rico. It became my beach uke, although even when I hauled down my other ukulele, I still played the Makala a lot. I just like it. It was my first ukulele. You gotta love your first one.
In September of 2017 my wife and I were at our home in San Juan. For over a week we had been getting hurricane warnings and we tried to get out, but we couldn't get a flight for less than a thousand dollars each. On the afternoon of September 5th, the winds picked up. At 3:00 we lost electric and running water. Our condo in San Juan is like a bunker and so when we lost electricity we went out into the atrium and I started strumming my Makala and singing some songs. After a while, other residents on our floor came out of their apartments to listen and some to sing along. Someone suggested that we should empty the refrigerators and have a party, as we might not get electricity for a long time and we wouldn't want our food to spoil. As Irma roared overhead, we were all snug. We sang songs and visited until it got dark, then we all retired to our apartments. Later people would tell me that they were worried at first, but then they figured that if their crazy neighbor was out there playing his ukulele, it couldn't be that bad.
After Irma we were without water for three days, electricity for five. My ukulele was about all the entertainment we had. That, and playing board games until it got too dark to see. Eight days after Irma we were able to get a flight out of San Juan, and I left the Makala, which everyone had named Irma, behind. Ten days after Irma, Maria hit and destroyed much of the island. They were without electricity and water for nine weeks. When we finally came back in December to clean up, there was Irma sitting up on a shelf where it wouldn't get wet waiting for me, none the worse for it.
That is the story of Irma. I played it out on the street during the San Sebastian festival just this last weekend.