Dud was awfully
quiet all through the daily
dissemination of anything on page one of the Valley Weekly
Miracle, which
wasn’t like him at all. Just sucked down caffeine and silently
shook his head
now and then.
“Anita
okay, Dud?”
“Oh …
sure, Doc.”
“You okay?”
He
nodded, then looked up with a wistful, philosophical look that
our guys don’t
usually get until after the buttered toast. “Sometimes,” he
said, “I think it’s
pearls before swine, that’s all.”
We waited.
“Music, I mean. You know how you practice and practice
and then you get
good enough to actually do
something?
Well, I took the accordion and went to the accordion festival to
compete …
well, you know I’m not really that bad any more…”
“You’re getting pretty darn good on that thing, Dud.”
“Thanks, Steve. Well, we drove down to the capital and I
got in the
competition and did okay. Placed third in polka. I played that
new piece. It’s
kinda hard because it has those minor bass buttons in it and it
took me forever
to learn not to miss them.
“It
was after that. You see, I put the accordion back in the car and
we went in for
a lunch they gave everyone.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I
forgot to lock the car. We were halfway through lunch when Anita
asked me if
I’d locked the car and then it hit me that I might not have
locked it. She
insisted I run right out and check and that’s what I did. And
that’s when I
lost my faith in human beings.”
“Oh,
Dud,” Doc said, “someone stole your accordion?”
“No,
it was still there in the back seat. But someone had put two
more in there with
it.”
He
shook his head. “Pearls before swine.”
---------
Fans
of the late Max Evans should check out Ol’ Max Evans’
letters to Jim Bob
Swafford and family at Amazon.com. Jim Bob is Max’s
cousin.