A Boy and a Violin

 

A Boy and a Violin

Around 1952, in a small town in Connecticut, a boy of about 10 called the local radio station to make a request of the host whose show offered listeners an opportunity to buy and sell items on air. Did anyone have a violin they wanted to give away?” he asked.   Though the family wasn't poor, there wasn't lots of extra money to go around buying fancy extras like a musical instrument.  Dad was a factory worker full time, working the evening shift, and doing tailoring mornings part time.  Mom stayed at home and tended to raising the family.  Both parents were children of immigrant Italians. Down the street lived Mom's mother and father and their 8 children.  The boy and his sister spent lots of time there and the young family had even lived with Grandma and Grandpa for a couple years in a household of 16 people until, Grandpa, a stone mason and bricklayer, built them a home of their own nearby.  He used bricks from a torn down factory that the boy and his young uncles had cleaned, chipping off the mortar in the hot sun. 

After church during Sunday dinner, Mom and Dad tuned into Mr. Maluzzo's Italian Hour on the small, local radio station, a show especially for the many Italian immigrant families who lived in the town. Those Neapolitan songs of the old country became forever recorded in the boy's brain.  His 8^th grade music teacher, Mrs. Hutchinson, told him he had a good voice, a compliment he never ever forgot. 

Surprise, surprise!  After the boy made the request on the radio for a violin, lo and behold a woman called in to the show with a violin she was willing to give to him.  It was only a basic instrument but in good shape and was gratefully received.  Thus began trips across town on the bus every Friday for violin lessons, allowing the boy to eventually play in the high school orchestra.

No, the boy didn't turn out to be a professional musician.  His musical aspirations were thwarted somewhat by the boy's local barber, a fiddler in whose shop the boy spent time learning the Irish Washerwoman and other jigs. 

Over 30 years later, the boy turned teacher, then businessman, ended up in San Antonio, Texas.  By a turn of events, and with the benefit of a solid knowledge of Italian food from his childhood, purchased a small Italian restaurant that later became one of the most successful restaurants in the city.  And that's where the violin entered the picture again.  No, he didn't start playing the violin again.  See, a violin is tuned exactly like a mandolin.  So the boy, now a middle-aged man, decided to try his hand at the mandolin and, thanks to his childhood lessons on the violin, readily began to play it, entertaining folks at his restaurant along with a couple other musicians, even forming a little mandolin band. 

The boy never forgot the gift of the violin and, having acquired a couple more violins over the years when he'd visit Connecticut to see his family, decided to give them away to deserving children.  The gift had been received and the gift needed now to be passed on.

Well, by now you've guessed it.  The boy with the violin was me.  I will be forever grateful to the woman who gave a boy she didn't even know the opportunity to enjoy a life rich with music.  

So, here's an appeal to my readers out there.  Do you have a musical instrument sitting in your attic or in that spare room that no one is using, perhaps one you inherited?  Most likely it's not worth a ton of money.  But it might be worth a career to a worthy youngster.  Why let it gather dust when it could enrich the life of a child?  If you have a violin, piano, flute, trumpet or any other instrument that you'd consider giving away, tell you what to do.  Get in touch with the music department of your local school.  They’ll know who would appreciate and benefit from having it.  Think how great you’ll feel knowing that you might have encouraged a child to become a fine musician, even ending up playing in a famous orchestra, symphony, or band of their own!