Accordion

SOME WEEKS ago, there appeared in this space a calm and reasoned discourse on the accordion.The gist of the column was that the accordion was surely the most annoying instrument known to mankind, and that maybe 20 people in the whole world actually enjoy accordion music -- most of those people no doubt under round-the-clock observation in one facility or another.The column also argued for stricter laws prohibiting the gathering of men and women (often dressed in lederhosen) for the express purpose of inflicting the screech of accordion music on the citizenry.

Blame it on Lawrence Welk. If you're unfamiliar with that name, members of the American Accordionists' Association will give you an extra-warm welcome to their festival in Baltimore this week. Accordionists in this country have long struggled with the legacy of Welk, the bandleader known for "champagne music" and polkas. His TV show, which aired from the mid-1950s to the early '80s, and then for what seemed an eternity in reruns on PBS, always gave a prominent role to the accordion.

In these days of rising taxes, job insecurity and soaring medical costs, more and more Americans are asking themselves a chilling question: "What happens if, God forbid, I have to get my accordion repaired?"This is certainly on my mind. I own an accordion. I used to own two of them. I bought them years ago at an auction for $25, which worked out to $12.50 per accordion, which struck me as an unbelievable deal.One of my accordions was destroyed when I made the common consumer mistake of leaving it outdoors for 14 months.

The Baltimore Sun Henry Michael Cedrone, a retired machinist and musician who had an "uncanny ability" to keep people on the dance floor, died of respiratory failure Sept. 18 at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 89 and lived in Lutherville. Born in Baltimore, he was raised on Granby Street in what was an Italian-Jewish immigrant neighborhood near the Shot Tower and Little Italy. As a child he heard his father playing the accordion with other neighbors who played guitar, tambourine and piano.

Steve Nagrabski is struggling for words, trying to say what it is about the accordion that grabbed him and has held him for a half-century, through its peak in the 1950s and later exile to the ethnic fringe of American culture. Something about the sound, "the accordion has a sound of its own," he says.He can't describe it, so he leans down in his chair to lift from the floor a 30-plus-year-old Italian accordion, a wheezy thing with papery lungs and keys yellowed the shade of a jaundiced eye."

Louis E. Martino, a retired Western Electric Corp. auditor and accomplished musician, died Saturday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care of complications from open-heart surgery. The longtime Timonium resident was 83. Mr. Martino was born and raised in Newark, N.J., and graduated from Barringer High School in 1940. During World War II, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and was assigned as lighthouse keeper at Mount Desert Rock near Frenchboro, Maine. Mr. Martino later joined the attack transport USS Joseph T. Dickman, which transported troops as part of the invasion of Okinawa.

HADDON TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- In the glory days, Stanley Darrow recalled with a wistful sigh, they were as popular as shoe stores. "Back in the '50s and '60s," he said, strapping on a 21-pound, gleaming, black Titano and giving it a squeeze, "every town had an accordion school." Now, Darrow's Acme Accordion School is among the last of its kind. Founded in 1952 and last remodeled in 1960, the low, white building is a throwback to a time when Lawrence Welk and his champagne bubbles were floating at the top of their popularity.

What do you say after 55 years? Hi? What's up? Did you bring your accordion?"What I did was give him a big hug, and I said, `Thank God!' " says Larry Micucci."

The Baltimore Sun Henry Michael Cedrone, a retired machinist and musician who had an "uncanny ability" to keep people on the dance floor, died of respiratory failure Sept. 18 at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 89 and lived in Lutherville. Born in Baltimore, he was raised on Granby Street in what was an Italian-Jewish immigrant neighborhood near the Shot Tower and Little Italy. As a child he heard his father playing the accordion with other neighbors who played guitar, tambourine and piano.

ONE OF THE most unnerving incidents of my adult life occurred recently when I found myself trapped in a room with a half-dozen accordion players.The accordion, as is universally acknowledged, is the most annoying instrument known to man.Statistics indicate there are maybe 20 people in the whole world who like accordion music, and most of these suffer from severe emotional problems. Two or three are serving life sentences on Death Row where, let's face it, you're happy to hear someone humming "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."

Louis E. Martino, a retired Western Electric Corp. auditor and accomplished musician, died Saturday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care of complications from open-heart surgery. The longtime Timonium resident was 83. Mr. Martino was born and raised in Newark, N.J., and graduated from Barringer High School in 1940. During World War II, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and was assigned as lighthouse keeper at Mount Desert Rock near Frenchboro, Maine. Mr. Martino later joined the attack transport USS Joseph T. Dickman, which transported troops as part of the invasion of Okinawa.

It was Alfred Zeller, a native of Stuttgart, Germany, an accordion player and certified ladies' man at 82, who had the vision. A few years ago, Zeller stopped at the Edelweiss Bakery and Cafe on Harford Road, about two blocks from his North Baltimore home, and spotted a fellow countryman behind the counter. Owner Dietrich Paul was serving up treats like schnitzel and springerle in the small Parkville shop that make the mouth of anyone who professes German ancestry water.

There are blogs galore devoted solely to specific material objects: Cars, electronics, computers and the like. Most focus on the newest, most advanced versions of the products. But not Retrothing (retrothing.com). Specializing in vintage technology, the blog revels in the quirky inventions of days gone by. For those who thrill at the novelty of Super 8 cameras, the warm scratchiness of vinyl records or the joyful camp of voice-controlled plastic robots, Retrothing is an ever-expanding bounty.

Rufus Harley, 70, who was billed as "the world's first jazz bagpiper" and emitted his haunting sounds alongside some of the greats of jazz, died of prostate cancer Aug. 1 in Philadelphia, his hometown. Although he fully acknowledged that "everybody thought I was crazy" when he turned to bagpipes in the early 1960s, he became a frequent sideman on records and in concerts with saxophonists like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt, with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and with the flutist Herbie Mann.

John Cullen Murphy, 85, the illustrator best known for the "Prince Valiant" cartoon strip for more than three decades, died Friday in Greenwich Conn. He drew "Prince Valiant" until a few months before his death. He retired in March, turning his strip over to his chosen successor, illustrator Gary Gianni of Chicago. "Prince Valiant" appears weekly in more than 300 newspapers nationwide, according to Rose McAllister of King Features Syndicate, distributor of the strip. Charles Vincent Corrado, 64, the longest-serving musician in the U.S. Marine Band who played piano for 10 presidents, died June 26 at his home in Potomac.

BEFORE I GET to today's topic ("Worms Making News"), I want to apologize to those readers, both human and elf, who were unhappy with my column on The Lord of the Rings. It turns out that my readership includes some very serious fans of the movie and the classic book by the late J.R. "Scooter" Tolkien. Many of these fans took time out from their busy schedules to write lengthy letters detailing the errors in my column, and observing that I am a stupid idiot. Here are some of the specific points they made (I am not making these points up)

Oscar Florentino Tellez, 56, one of San Antonio's best known bajo sexto players who was a regular with the Grammy-winning Texas Tornados, died Sunday in a one-vehicle traffic accident near Cotulla, Texas. Mr. Tellez taught himself to play music as a small boy. By his teens, he had learned to play the bass, drums, accordion, the keyboard and the bajo sexto, a Mexican bass guitar that resembles a 12-string guitar.

AS REGULAR readers of this space know, I have spent the better part of my life avoiding accordion music.This is because the accordion is the most annoying instrument known to man, something that dawned on me at the age of 2 or 3 (and I was not particularly precocious).The fact is, there are only about 20 people in this country who actually enjoy the accordion. And these are mostly societal misfits, people who were dropped on their heads as infants, etc.For the rest of us, the sight of someone strapping on an accordion is the most terrifying sight imaginable.

Helen M. Huebel of Parkville requested an Accordion Treat Cookies recipe. She said she had "scoured cookbooks and papers. [They are] very tender cookies and the batter was poured into accordion-pleated aluminum foil to bake." From Kathy Catlin of Severn came the chosen response. She wrote: "Many years ago, this was the recipe used for a National Grange cooking contest. My mother made it then, and I have kept the recipe." Accordion-Pleated Cookies Makes 4 dozen cookies 1/4 cup butter, softened 3/4 cup granulated sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cups sifted flour 1/2 cup chopped nuts, if desired heavy-duty aluminum foil confectioners' sugar, optional Cream the butter.