{"id":17124,"date":"2019-11-27T16:02:07","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T21:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=17124"},"modified":"2020-04-30T10:06:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:06:49","slug":"accordion-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/accordion-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Accordion Crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; width: 100%; height: 450px;\" src=\"\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23d2d2d2&amp;backgroundColorFullscreen=%23d2d2d2&amp;d=dec19_flipbook_for_web&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=8&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I\u00a0<\/span>was thirteen in 1967. Every week, I\u2019d jump on the bus with a heavy gray suitcase for my accordion lessons. The best part was not my playing but the deluxe Scandalli with a grill that looked like the front of a Ferrari. It was like carrying around a universe spilling with stars. The second best part was Mr. Tucci.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">My music teacher\u2019s second-floor office was on Congress Street. It had huge plate-glass windows that framed the busy shoppers swarming Recordland (where none of the rock albums featured an accordion player). It was December: Last week I\u2019d been assigned \u201cLady of Spain.\u201d Uh oh. I was out of time. Mr. Tucci was going to know I hadn\u2019t prepared from the first note. I\u2019d really, really meant to practice, but a girl got in the way. I was a goner. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cHello, Mr. Tucci.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cAre you ready?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">I frantically tried to think of a snappy answer, but he closed his eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWell, go ahead.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">My \u201cLady of Spain\u201d was a car crash. Amid the sound of rending metal, Mr. Tucci shook his head, walked to his giant window, and gazed down the street. From the corner of my eye I saw Bernie\u2019s Fashions (weirdly painted \u201cBernies Fashion\u2019s, air-conditioned\u201d on the building) over the traffic, lined up to a sparkling vanishing point beyond Monument Square. Brushed steel telephone poles downtown twinkled with bracelets of light. My testosterone kicked in: <i>How early the sun goes down now! What time was it in Spain? Could I stop in and pick up some English Leather\u00ae at Porteous, Mitchell &amp; Braun? The Christmas guide at the Victoria Mansion told me she liked it&#8230; <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">I swear I heard Mr. Tucci sigh. My rendition complete, its wheels still spinning upside down, Mr. Tucci scuffed to his desk. He picked up a metronome, an exact match to the one gathering dust on my mother\u2019s piano. \u201cHave you ever seen one of these before?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Then he walked back to his window. The world\u2019s window. With Christmas vibrating through the glass, enormous and wonderful. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Ten Christmases later, I sat in the cockpit of a Navy T-28 trainer, waiting to taxi for my first Night Navigation Solo. The lights on the runway sparkled. In a flash I was back on Congress Street. In my headphones I heard my instructor\u2019s drawl. \u201cSargent, are you ready?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cReady, sir!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cWell, go ahead.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/category\/editor\/\">Click here to\u00a0view past\u00a0<strong>Letters from the Editor.<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[591,594,356,592,593,126],"class_list":["post-17124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-accordion","tag-christmas","tag-colin-w-sargent","tag-congress-street","tag-monument-square","tag-portland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18438,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17124\/revisions\/18438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}