1000 accordions is not enough

Years ago, while spending time in my Grandparents' suburban house in B.C., I bumped into my musical heritage. I uncovered it in closets, behind dressers, in boxes. A slew of oboes, tubas, cellos, violins, sitars, organs, pianos, and gongs, lined up on the carpet. I passed a lot of time prodding instruments that were beautiful, but obviously impossible to play.

Then one day my Grandma sat down and strummed a song. Her eyes darted back and forth; her foot tapped the ground. And her head swayed like a Bollywood dancer. Then she rushed to set down the cello/accordion/sitar and explain she hadn't touched it in years.

It was infuriating how well the instruments listened to her, when I was obviously offering them all the love.

"She keeps you in the walk-in!" I whispered hoarsely.

My Grandma had two accordions and taught me how to play Amazing Grace, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and Edelweiss, ie) The same four chords. Eventually she gave me one of the accordions, and I watched my Dad grumble as he packed this box under a van seat with all my other boxes.

I felt she had invited me into a mythical family tree - one I imagined being dotted with flouting Minstrels and hide-drumming Vikings. I was next. And it wouldn't be through monotonous piano lessons my Grandma had tried to give me when I was younger. No. It would be through the accordion - the most challenging instrument I knew.

Sure accordions are loud and obnoxious, and I am neither loud nor obnoxious. But accordionists are also loners, and I've always felt an affinity to outcasts. Remember that scene in the animated Peter Pan with the sailor in the crow's nest playing the squeeze box?

Captain Hook shot him.

I hated that scene.

It's part of my emerging into adulthood (still ongoing please God) that I've sought out my heritage by irrational obsessions like learning German and lugging my accordion to parties.

Is it any wonder then, this deep desire to go where the accordions roam, where polkas run on tap all night, and felt hats and lederhosen waltz in mountain air?

I was thinking about all the aspiring journalists getting high-profile internships this summer and flying to Indonesia and meeting celebrities.

And then I thought, if I go to Kathmandu, I'll miss the world's largest accordion festival with my Grandma and her RV.

I realize that my image of "accordion festival" is probably a little off. I was picturing a hallucinatory music fest with former hippies dressed like Chestchire cats smoking fat cigars on their trailer steps in the desert.

It's Kimberley B.C. after all with accordion players over 60. I don't want to be the only one on drugs, ending my news reports with,

"This is Laura Keil, dispatching from the edge of sanity WAAAAAAANH" (=sound of accordion)

Fun, yes, but not in that collective way you expect at a summer fest.

All-night polkas. World Records for accordions played at the same time (1000). It sounds like the perfect week in July. The perfect way to skirt reality, and follow my lineage.
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