Carolyn J - Texas

This is the very first Featured Story from my very first August Anthology Interview. It is special because it is my mother's story. I love to listen to stories from her childhood and wish I could have been there to know them all when they were younger.

I love you, mom.

Claire

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My dad taught himself how to play the accordion. There weren't too many instruments around when he was growing up and that was just one instrument he stumbled across. So therefore, we children learned to play the accordion. Saturday morning was music lesson day. He would put us in the car with the accordions and we went to the music store, go downstairs and have our music lessons. Dad had an adult-sized accordion and when Sheri [my oldest sister] started playing they bought a youth-sized accordion, which we all shared and had to learn with. I think it was Schmidt Music in Minneapolis, where we had our lessons. I enjoyed playing the accordion. I couldn't master the left hand very well, but it was fun.
Auggie [my older brother] saw a guitar and wanted to start playing that. So he had guitar lessons while us girls had accordion lessons. He had to learn to play it from right-handed to left-handed because he cut two of his fingers off not once but twice in wood shop in junior high. The fingers were reattached but the doctors had to cut them off one time because as they were starting to mend the tendons twisted the finger around so was growing the wrong way. So he had to retrain himself how to play the guitar the other way. Dad could also play the mouth organ, which is also called the harmonica.
When we were older, Mom and Dad were given an upright piano from one of the churches. So that sat in the living room and a neighbor lady gave Pam, Sheri and me piano lessons. We did that once a week. Dad got tired of the piano taking up room, so he chopped it up and used as firewood. That ended the piano lessons.
Dad could also play the spoons. If you gave him a couple of metal spoons, he could play them. He was very entertaining.