Where it smelled like shoes and attic dust

My dad had a Hohner chromatic accordion - the kind with lots of buttons and no piano keys. And sometimes, if we begged him long enough, he would take it down from the attic-stair shelf and play Serbian folk songs on it for us. We were pretty young but I still remember how much we would dance and how we thought it was the most wonderful thing in the world. And it was.



My mom would save our Mallo-Cup and Smoothie 'money' in a translucent circular container that she kept in the same attic-stair shelf area and when we saved $5.00 dollars worth, she'd send them to Boyer Candy in Altoona, PA. Six to ten weeks later, a box of ten Mallo-Cups was delivered. This was the second most wonderful thing in the world.

* * *

Anyone can be strong if they practice, but to learn to be strong with a gentle hand takes something more