In case the news escaped you, June was International Accordion Awareness Month and the fact that the occasion has come and gone with scarcely a blip being registered on the public pulse leaves me with mixed emotions.
On the one hand I have always considered it to be a jolly sort of instrument that caused people to dance round and round until they collapsed from exhaustion, but my attitude changed when my father made me take it.
Dad thought I could make some extra money by playing it at festivals in my hometown of Hamilton such as the Pouring of the Steel at Dofasco Foundries and the annual storming of the Wentworth County Jail, but things didn't pan out.
The accordion was the latest in a series of musical instruments my father wanted me to learn, but something always seemed to happen. I was progressing quite nicely on the harpsichord when I somehow managed to put my foot through it while playing a particularly lively number. And my effort at mastering the piano ended abruptly one night when the damn thing caught fire when I was right in the middle of a recital.
In my defence I believe all this has something to do with the quality of the teachers my dad hired. My accordion teacher was a taciturn man named Mr. Mueller who Dad thought would make the ideal choice because he had spent one summer tending goats in the Swiss Alps.
You can't turn around without bumping into an accordion player in those parts, my dad told me, so some of that has got to rub off on Mueller.
Perhaps it did rub off on Mr. Mueller, but it certainly didn't have the same effect on me and, in fact, along about my third lesson he began demanding his fee in advance and I have always felt this had to do with my total lack of discernible progress.
The other thing I remember about that period is the angry crowd of neighbours that used to encircle the house about the time I started practising. Dad put up with that for awhile, but one night they showed up with torches and not long after that I switched to the ukulele. Despite all the negative vibes associated with my accordion experience, it did have one positive result, however, because a bylaw was passed banning the playing of that instrument within Hamilton city limits after 6 p.m. and as far as I know, it is still in effect.