|
Hey guys, this is my first attempt at writng this story up for the local papers. What do you think?
Woman Recovers ‘Magic Violin’ from E-Bay
“Max is like a mini-Red Violin…”
At the age of eight, Michele Archer told her friends that her violin, Max, was magic.
At age fifty, she’s inclined to agree that he is one special fiddle.
“Thirty years ago, I lived in Chicago and came home one day to find my apartment had been broken into. Only one thing was missing: Max.”
“I named the instrument in honor of Max Rabinowitz. We lived in St. Louis and Mr. Rabinowitz served as concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony. Actually, according to his label, Max’s official title reads, model Nicola Amati, Adolph Adler, Dresden, 1923. I really loved this violin, I kept it polished and cleaned; he had a special cloth I wrapped him in and one for wiping him down. If it were possible I probably would have fed him cookies and milk.”
“During the school year I practiced about three hours a night and during the summers, five to six hours a day. I was a high school orchestra nerd and proud of it. Played in the St. Louis Youth Orchestra, the University City Symphony and any other group I could audition my way into. Then when I was older, I made that idiotic move to Chicago against my parent’s wishes. After Max’s theft I didn’t even tell them because I knew it would either kill them or they would kill me. Not pretty.”
“But I was so used to playing my violin, I really felt lost. I scraped together $125 and bought a very cheap set, but managed to play back up fiddle with a country western band at the Grand Ol’ Opry and joined a group called ‘The Way Orchestra’ for awhile.”
Michele married, moved to Florida, divorced and faced yet another obstacle to a possible music career: a car wreck. “The bones in my wrists were so bruised they swelled to practically the size of my hands. Even a year later when I attempted to play for a friend's wedding, five minutes into the set they began to hurt so much I finished my songs on one finger. After that, I said, ‘I get it God, I’ll go do something else.’ I thought I was through.”
For the next ten years, Michele worked at teaching and writing, but never forgot about her violin. “But it got to the point where I couldn’t even hear violin music without feeling sad. I stopped listening for a long time. Then I got an idea for a short story about a concert violinist who goes to Santa Fe to investigate the death of his brother. I wrote it up and sent it to ‘Coach’s Midnight Diner’ where it won an Editor’s Choice Award. But while writing it, to get into the mood, I started listening to tons of violin music again, Jacsha Heifetz, Itzak Perlman, Joshua Bell…and then I couldn’t help it. After ten years, I got out my violin and tried playing a song. My wrists didn’t hurt. At least not for about half an hour. So I kept practicing a little everyday. I learned a bunch of popular songs that weren’t hard on my wrists, but ones people enjoyed listening to and began to play gigs around town. I was making money doing something I wasn’t supposed to be able to do. Now I'm even the string teacher at Miller's Music in Bonita Springs.”
“It took a year, but I finally began out-playing my instrument and knew I needed something better. I really began to wish I had Max back.”
“Then one night I was talking about Max to a friend of mine online and she suggested just googling his label info. I didn’t tell her I tried that several times before and came up empty. Instead, I stopped what I was doing and did it, and there was Max, for sale on EBay. I tried contacting the seller; no answer. I called the Cook County PD to get a copy of the theft report, but they only hold onto reports for seven years and then they’re destroyed. I tried everything I knew to try. I wound up waiting for the very end to bid, but the price became too high. I thought I'd lost my violin again. But, the next day, the man with the winning bid e-mailed me. It turned out to be a friend of mine, Daniel Eaton of Atlanta, Georgia. He said he bought Max back and asked for my address so he could give it to the seller. You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
“Max is in good shape, and sounds awesome. Currently, I’m saving my money so that our local luthier, William Fleischer, can make a couple of repairs on things that he suffered from a lack of maintenance. He’ll be good as new.”
“Max is like a mini-Red Violin. He's been on a real oddessy. I’ve found him discussed on dealer sites in discussions about German violins and I know he’s been to at least five different states. But, I’m just so glad he found his way home. It really is a miracle.” __________________
|
BLOGOSPHERE 
