I don't remember the teacher's name. I'll call him Mr. Lentl (for lack of anything else that comes to mind). But he was an old guy who I recall reminded me of Adolph Menjou in Pollyana. A grumpy, sometimes inpatient fellow who taught me a lot about playing the accordion and music.
I think it was somewhere around five years of accordion lessons. During that time, I played at several park/bandstand community concerts (on stage with my music school accordion students), a couple of grade school events, and, naturally, many impromptu at-home "go get your accordion and play something for your aunts and uncles", performances. The latter of which began enthusiastically enough (see photo, that's my grandma Hansen drinking a glass of Pabst Blue Ribbon, plugging her ear and wondering when this will all end), then digressed into a embarrassing whine-fest by me to let me go out and play with my friends.
Funny, in a scene from one of my favorite movies, Fargo, the son is shown sitting in his room with an accordion on his bed and a poster of some Bavarian accordion master plastered on the back of his bedroom door! Apparently most males of Scandinavian decent are subjected to taking accordion lessons early in life. I call it the "Lawrence Welk/Myron Floren Syndrome". Geeze, no wonder I hate polka music to this day!
Anyway, much to the dismay of my Danish mother and grandmother, my feigned interest in playing the accordion wained as I entered pre-teen years and picked up a guitar for the first time. The rest is history, since I still play guitar to this day. Check that...try to play the guitar. Evidently, one must practice on a regular basis to become proficient in anything, something I don't do enough of...practice, that is.
Oh yeah, I also dabbled in playing the drums in my teens and was even a drummer in a small, short-lived rock band whilst in the Navy at Moffett Field and in Hawaii. We actually did respectable versions of Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young), Hey Joe (Hendrix), and a selection of other rock and roll gems from the 60's and early 70's. My band buddies and I spent most of our practice time arguing about which song to play, how to play them properly, and how each of us sucked at our particular role in the band! Our front man and lead guitar player, Greg, was very good...the rest of us did, indeed, suck. Greg left the band first due to all the bickering. It was all over five minutes after that!
Today, I am an average-skilled rhythm guitar player, ie, wannabe lead guitar player whose idols include Santana, Eric Clapton, Daryl Stermer (Phil Collins guitarist), and Russ Freeman (Rippingtons). Oh...I am, however, a wicked air-guitarist. At least I got that goin' for me!
