The Envy of the Block

It's us. We are so cool. We have something that the others don't have, and wouldn't they love to have it, but they don't...

I suppose, however, that 'block' is a generous term for us here. There is a dirt road, and there are a couple other houses on it. I guess those are the ones to whom I am referring still, but even beyond in the community, covetousness is a-brewin'.

Do you want to know what it is, that so sets us apart, that makes us so superior? It has always been a symbol of the upper class, the bourgeois, the "happenin' " ones. Young people flock to it, matches are made around it, a symbol of romance and sophistication.

A piano accordian. Oh yes. No joke. We are now the proud owners of an accordian. Chris has a good friend named Bernie with whom he plays many's the card game and they help each other with outdoor chores.

So the story goes, one fateful day Chris was over in Bernie's shop, and he noticed it there, a diamond in the rough, covered in years of neglect and dust. He inquired and Bernie offered, and now it is ours.

Now begins the "In Praise of Chris" section. He amazes me. He had never held an accordian in his life before this one. Yet he had the confidence and instinct with which to totally disassemble and repair this instrument with no direction or instruction of any kind. I couldn't believe it. He first cleaned it, then took it TOTALLY apart, and began work. All the keys were at different levels, and he figured out the problem, levelled them all, one by one. It wheezed and leaked air: not a problem for Engineering brain Chris. He sourced the leaks and repaired them, sealed degraded seams, repaired damaged reeds, sculpted missing and broken parts, you name it. Unreal. I was sitting there with my jaw on the floor. He just has the instinct for "how stuff works", and can look at something new, figure out the mechanics of it, and fix something he has no knowledge of otherwise. That is a gift. I wouldn't begin to have the first clue towards anything he did those few evenings he spent fixing this old fella up. Remarkable. Now it can be nicely played (not by me, mind you) and not do any weird things.

What a man. He can build pretty much anything too. Mechanical (and computer, for that matter) problem solving is something is just in him. Nota Bene. 'At's ma boy.