Tortured Souls, The Dogs Saved Me

Tortured Souls, The Dogs Saved Me.

My grandfather played the fiddle. He could make
that fiddle talk to deities and cause them to make
new laws for man to abide by, I think. He won
awards every year at the Texas State
"Old Fiddlers' Contest" and walked away with top
honors.
His grandson, me? Well let me tell you about my
time during sixth grade and the violin lessons.
There had been numerous conversations about
music lessons over the years at the supper table,
but somehow they had found out about Mrs. Gandy.
She made the rounds of all the schools in the
Corpus Christi area giving violin lessons. A big
woman with a big hat full of plastic flowers and
leafy stems to hide her hearing aid microphones.
The control boxes for them were in her bra and
had control knobs that she continually had to
adjust depending on the background noise and
static.
When she listened to the advanced students she
always had her hands in her dress jerking,
pushing and pulling on them trying to adjust them.
Reminded me of a nursing calf-nudging momma
to let more milk down.
Well, when it comes to reading music notes you
CAN say I am "non como mentis". I mean I can
not imagine a tone in my head by looking at
music page symbols.
Doesn’t work for me,,,,period.
Fifty cents a week and she furnished the violin
and simple score pages of music notes to
practice.
Practice? Practice! That for me was like
practice reading hieroglyphics.
But I could make that violin sound like you cast
a thousand tortured souls into the flames of Hell
at every stroke of the whatever they called it
you rubbed across the strings.
Mrs. Gandy loved it. She didn't have to adjust
her hearing aids.
My mother? She would put me in the spare
bedroom. From there I would saw annnnd drag
annnnd skip, OH YEAH!, the bow, that's it, across
the strings making them scream,
"GOOOSEPIMPLES"!, "SHIVERS"!.
Our two old bird dogs would wail in sympathy.
Longing for the poor lost whatevers that they
wail for in sympathy.
My mom, her wits on end called my dad at
work one evening telling him about the
complaints from the neighbors because their
dogs were wailing and sympathizing with the
"music?"
He came home, grabbed the violin and we went
to the school where he turned it in while Mrs.
Gandy asked, "why? I was making such progress."
Oh well, so much for my music career. I have trouble
playing the radio so that tells you something.

Mark Crider, raffish raconteur ©1997

Story ID:	3594
Written by:	Mark Crider (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Corpus Christi Coating & Machine Inc.
Location:	Corpus Christi Texas U.S.A.
Year:	1949