Damn accoridon players

The romance that I once found in watching the accordion player play me his songs has varied in intensity since my trip has began. The first time I saw an old man play on the streets of Dublin I attempted to amount it into some sort of sign and carried that message with me. Then, a few days later I watched an accordion army play down the streets of Liverpool and began to realize that the squeeze box was not such a sight to be seen. I began to feel as I began to feel in Fort Collins. "Oh, you play accordion?! So does everyone else in this town..." Of course, in the back of my mind there was only one accordion player that mattered to me and he was wonderful with or without it. As the accordions pushed whimsically throughout the streets of the majority of the towns I wandered through only once in a while was I moved to take a breath and admire from the other side of the road. At one point I ignored that an accordions song had ever impacted me at all because the sheer thought of them made me want to rip out my insides. I also cried at the sight of an accordion in an old Russian antique shop. I could see its insides and it could see mine. I wanted to hold it and have it just as much as I imagined it wanted to be had. I imagined carrying it around the world not to be played but to be delivered and then I realized that crimes of accordions have been said and written before and there is no need for me to be unnecessarily romantic in such a previously fabricated sort of way.

Last night, in a small bar, in the outskirts of Prague, the accordion and its song struck again. We were on a mission. Christine, a Chicago bred, Czech fed, bad ass woman of the world, and her Canadian posse were on the search for an old man and the accordion he was trying to sell. They had met him at a market with his accordions baring all on the hood of his car and were now prepared to through down some cash and walk away with the prize. A medium sized, pre World War II, German made, button accordion. I was fortunately staying with the right girl at the right time because I got to tag along. We followed what Noah called "old man directions" to the bar and were astonished to find that it was filled with the grandfathers of Prague, some of their wives, and about half a dozen accordions plus a clarinet. We just so happened to be invited to participate in a weekly ritual that has been happening for over 40 years. Friends coming together, drinking, and playing music. Two woman were the heart of the beat playing and pouring music out with all that they had. It was a romantics' heart dream come true. We sat and they played and played and sang and played. Every once in a song one of the old men would gather the courage to ask the young girl to dance. I was swept into the other room by one of the most attractive men at that age I have ever seen, and as the night went on and the stories translated themselves into our mental keepsake boxes we realized how incredible this really was. A formal goodbye was given and the gist of it was......this is Czech, the is our tradition, many are gone, but new ones keep coming.

And the accordion? He left it at home.....but, he gave us directions to tomorrows festivities. We will go to dance another night away and maybe come home with a little piece of their tradition.