My Accordion Story
This is old news now, but I noticed that Becky of Good Grief! got an accordion for her birthday. What an excellent gift, although it may be like me getting a set of golf clubs. Cool, but pointless, as I have no ability for the game.
The long-suffering accordion has been unfairly singled out among musical instruments as the butt of countless insults over the years. A typical example is a cartoon by Gary Larson. The caption: “Welcome to heaven. Here’s your harp. Welcome to hell. Here’s your accordion.”
In the past, I laughed as hard as anyone at accordion jokes, but in recent years I’ve acquired respect and admiration for the instrument. Accordions are actually kind of hip now. (The same transformation happened to me with the bagpipes; I even considered joining a pipe band, although playing drums.) Anyway, on to my story.
I used to work with a wonderful accordionist named Tony DiGiulio. Tony reminisced that “in the old days” (as he put it), he would drop off his accordion on the steps of the Bellevue Stratford Hotel and then drive off to look for a place to park. Tony’s lesson for us young whippersnappers was that in the old days, he didn’t have to worry about someone stealing his accordion. I quipped, “Nobody stole it because it was an accordion!” Everyone got the joke, of course (even Tony laughed graciously), but now, if a collection of instruments just happened to be sitting unattended on some hotel steps somewhere, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the first instrument stolen were the accordion!