Dad's Violin

[Radio]

This is my fathers Violin. For most of it's more than 100 years it's been broken.

A few years before World War II, on a snowy, icy day my father walked from the farm near Cumberland Gap to a shop in Tazewell where he paid $20 for the used Violin. On the way home, Dad's younger brother, Tip, wanted to carry it. Tip slipped on the ice as they took a short cut though a railroad tunnel and cracked the top of Dad's new "fiddle."

So most of it's existence has been one of silence, hidden away in attics and closets, until 1997 when it was repaired and made playable. Kathy played it at Georgia State while earning her BFA in Music Education. Then, loaned to a student, it was broken again, this time the cost of repair being prohibitive.

Until a very unique gentleman, Dan C. came into the doll shop a few months ago, seemingly by Divine Appointment, and struck up a conversation with Kathy. Before long a deal was struck to trade Violin lessons for Violin repair.

You see, Dan was a luthier, and the son of a luthier, but had never learned to play. And was in place where learning to play, and a good project, would do him some good.

After quite a few lessons, and 175 hours of meticulous labor, Dad's Violin is home again, intact, playable, and way better than new being almost entirely rebuilt from fine, aged materials. It needs to sit and be quiet just a little bit more while the new glue and varnish dry completely.

And then it will make music like never before.

[NN5I]

Just don't let any third-stringers fiddle around with it, so it won't see any more violence. Since it isn't a guitar, there's little to fret about, of course.

Sorry for the viol humor. I hope it won't peg me as a nut. Perhaps I ought to stop talking and let my chin rest. Just scroll down and read the rest of the responses; this seems to be a very unsound post, so I'll just bow out now and go fill up at the Arco station down the street, or maybe play a few hands of bridge.

[electricflyer]

Carl, I couldn't possibly top that reply. Nice gitfiddle there Wade.

[Radio]

What's really funny is an error I just detected in the ORR.net smiley list.

You know that a smiley of a certain style can be inserted into text. Usually the text would be something like :text: which would insert a specific smiley. The text for :violin: should have been violin inside two colons, but the colons were missing in the smiley file. So every time the word violin was used in the post I got a :violin: instead.

Well, :violin: was used a lot in the post so there were :violin: 's all over. That explains why the capital V in violin all through the post. I edited that before getting into vBulletin to fix the :violin: smiley file.

I thought about just leaving it that way. But decided not to. :violin2: