The Accordion Teacher

      I was seven years old when I first met him…the accordion teacher. He was a handsome man, but I did not realize it then because I was just a child. What I did understand was that he was kind and patient, and when he would give a razzamatazz type of splendor with the keys and chords of his instrument, it was usually to the melody of Peg of My Heart. He’d slur the keys of his accordion into a chord with the fingers of his hands and smiled a smile that was the sum total of the instrument he played, the pleasure of making it happen, and a happy-go-lucky feeling it induced that came as easy as breathing. His accordion was big and black…one with 120 buttons for base alone…and it had “diamonds” composing a scale of notes on its façade. It was magnificent and mysterious. 
The accordion teacher was confident and reassuring. His name was “Mr. Odell.” On that fateful day we met, he went behind the public service counter of the music store in Vallejo, California where he worked and retrieved a small suitcase, some manila colored flashcards for reading music, and a Sedlon Accordion Series book for beginners. Inside the suitcase was a “baby accordion” with 12 base buttons and a short keyboard that would become my enemy and my friend. My parents agreed to rent the “baby” accordion for twelve dollars a month while I learned to play the instrument. If things worked out, one day, perhaps, they would buy me one. The accordion lessons were a luxury. Money was tight. My parents were resolute that this was serious business, and I’d have to practice. 
      “Practice” became a dreaded word in the beginning. It wasn’t easy splitting my brain in three different directions…squeezing the bellows, playing one thing on the right hand and another on the left. I cried a lot, but it was a necessary misery I had to see through. I hated it at times and felt like I wasn’t accomplishing much, but when I went to my weekly lesson, Mr. Odell had all the confidence in the world in my ability to play the instrument and would have something kind to say. I didn’t know it then, but looking back, I think that was what made him a winner; he’d give anyone the benefit of a doubt for good. 
      In no time at all I was playing “Come to the Sea” and “Merrily We Roll Along”. Soon I was in an accordion band with other children. Mr. Odell would waive his plastic white conductor’s wand in an effort to keep all of us youngsters in sync. All the children and their mothers appreciated Mr. Odell, and I remember overhearing complimentary remarks exchanged concerning him at practices. I didn’t realize it then, but teaching children music and having the band was a second job. Mr. Odell worked at a shipyard during the day. He kept on going like the Energizer bunny. Some of the kids in band were really good. I was fair to middling. Looking back, I realize that even if I wasn’t the best, it was a terrific experience.
      One day Mr. Odell approached my parents about the family of a young girl who wanted to sell an accordion for financial reasons. It was a white accordion with gold keys, a breathtaking instrument for a girl. The girl who owned the accordion was named Kim and K-I-M was on the face of the accordion in metal letters. When my parents agreed to purchase the instrument, Mr. Odell had J-L-G, my initials, put on the place where K-I-M had been attached as a gift. He was delighted to see me have the instrument, but took it personally to heart over the circumstances that had befallen the family of the girl who lost it. His compassion was genuine. Later in life, after overcoming a series of tragedies, Kim, like a fairytale princess, was to become the wife of a state senator and live on a splendid estate. Every once in a while, over the years, when I played my instrument I would think of Kim, how her fingers had once played the familiar keys beneath my fingers, and how her life had been transformed. 
      I continued my accordion lessons for five years, and one day was playing better than my teacher. Later I was to learn that Mr. Odell was a self-taught musician, and, although quite capable at playing his instrument, felt that a person didn’t have to do a thing especially well to teach it well, which proved to be true. I was getting into the Lawrence Welk arrangements and had received my 4th Christmas card from his number one accordionist, Myron Floren, which was a very big deal, about the time I quit taking lessons. Once-upon-a-time I was pretty good, but with the course of living life and putting my instrument sporadically to rest, I have regressed a bit in my abilities on the “squeeze box”, however, my accordion and I have shared some good times; Christmas caroling in nursing homes, bell ringing for the Salvation Army, visits to hospital wards, Air Force Christmas parties, church functions, nursery school graduations, shut-in Thanksgiving gatherings, and library story times and classroom visits at grammar schools being a few of them. I have to confess the pain was worth the gain, but I can only say that after the fact, whole-heartedly. 
      Sometimes when I’m feeling blue, in the quiet of my room I get the now 50 year old gold and white accordion out of it’s tattered case and sit on my bed, close my eyes and slur the keys of my instrument into a chord with the fingers of my hands and feel a smile breaking through the sadness of the moment, a smile that is the sum total of the instrument I am playing, the pleasure of making it happen, and a happy-go-lucky feeling it induces that comes as easy as breathing, and I savor within myself, the gift my accordion teacher gave me. 
       Looking back, I realize Mr. Odell was good at what he did because he believed the best was in me, and he loved doing what he did. He always had a smile to share and seemed to have a song in his heart, if not at the tips of his fingers; perhaps because he was comfortable with whom he was. I think that was probably why all the moms thought he was great. He wasn’t just a good accordion teacher; he was a good example and a kind man in the truest sense of the word.

Dedicated to the memory of Jerry Odell, a wonderful human being and accordion teacher, who became my step-dad in 1962

Joan and Jerry Odell, my "folks", in 2000...46 years later!