I was a pretty good blues player when I was young, with long hair down my back - I think the talent disappeared about the same time as the hair did. Samson syndrome ? :-/ 
Which strat you got Jerry ?
Ive got a natural bodied strat with rosewood neck. Actually the body is sort of golden coloured varnish now as its aged. Its a USA made one but a CBS era one from around 1979/80 (the fender numberings seem to be a little less than exact!).However,despite a lot of people frowning on the CBS era ones, she plays very well. I got it second hand in the early 80s and have had to refret it once. Bit battered in places and you get the usual strat issue with the jack socket but otherwise a nice guitar-if surprisingly heavy! I also treated myself about 14 years ago to a new 12string Rickenbacker 360 in fireglo. Might be limited in what it can do but a truly lovely guitar-and the distance between strings is about the same as the strat so its easy to swap between the two( unlike a Les Paul I once borrowed where it took me time to get used to the slightly wider gap and I kept hitting the wrong strings

). TBH I mostly play my ovation acoustic these days-thats when I find time to play :'(I got a line6 pocket pod last year and thats great fun to play around with and as you just plug the guitar in and some earphones there's no noise to annoy the better half

.What guitar/s do you play mate?