"The Fiddle" by Chris Edwards

The old fiddle had a brassy, sweet sound.

That's the way its human

companion was given to describing it. It had been, in all likelihood, fifteen

years, maybe more, since the bow had glided across its strings.

Five years since the man who spent many days and nights perfecting that bowhand had drew a breath.

His old buddies from his thirty-some-odd years of employment called him “Booger,” and some called him Red, before the hair went to grey. To me, he was my grandfather, but he was always present. 

He pretty much raised me, and his music was always there, alongside him. He loved sharing in his discoveries of great old-time songsters and pickers, who he’d tape off of public radio broadcasts. We’d listen to them as we headed into town on Saturdays, to pick up various sundries and get haircuts.

All that seems like a world away now. 

How I wished I could turn back the circles of the sun to those august times, when life moved a little slower; when the sound of that fiddle, along with his laugh and those stories, were constants in my young existence.

Still, that fiddle sat in its case for many years. There was the one time I took it to a friend who specialized in guitar and fiddle repairs, and he set it up; worked his magic somehow. 

“That’s sho’ nuff a beautiful devil’s box,” he said.

“Yessir. It’s my granddad’s. Hopefully we can get him back to playing it now.”

He sawed on it a little bit when I brought it to him, but ultimately put it back into its case. I think he played a scale or something. Probably didn’t last more than a minute.

         “I’ll get back to it. Got to build the strength in my arm back up,” he said.

         There’s something about a stormy springtime evening to find the right time to get to the things you’ve been putting off. It was such a day that the fiddle finally came out of its hard-shell sarcophagus. 

         It had been since that night I brought it back to him that I had seen it. Its beautiful flame-maple still looked as penny-pretty as it did when he would play it at get-togethers and little jam sessions with his pickin’ pals.

         The story was that the wood used to build it came from sheets of wainscoting that was once in the White House. Who knows how true that was? I do recall the gentleman who built the instrument, along with many beautiful guitars, mandolins and upright basses, seemed to have been everywhere and done it all. Pickett was his name. Quite fitting for someone who built guitars and such.

         I took the bow and gently dragged the fine horsehair across the strings. Hmmm…not at all what I fantasized about hearing, but it was just the first time, after all.

         The sound wasn’t ear-pleasing, to say the least, but there was something, when I dragged it again, like a hint of a note in there. I got the tuner out of the case and loaded a fresh nine-volt battery into it. I knew the correct tuning for fiddle, from having played a little bit of mandolin, and the fact that they were the same, but the pegs on this thing were so tight, I was afraid I’d break something.

         I dragged the bow across those strings some more. I could, I discovered, saw on the E string a bit, and make something that sounded semi-musical. Otherwise, I would hear something akin to a braying jackass.

         The stormy winds that howled outside were pleasing against the discordance I only seemed to be able to manage with the fiddle. 

         “Fiddle” or “violin,” people seem to get hung up on those terms, like they do with many qualifying and quantifying words. My grandfather would joke that the difference between the two was the latter had “strings,” while the former had “strangs.” I told that joke to a tattoo artist buddy once, and he didn’t get it.

         Ah well, it’s always funny to me, but then again, the guy who told it had a great sense of humor. Corny, yes, but so, so missed.

         If only he were here to give some instruction on how to properly hold this bow and how to eke some music out of this beautiful commingling of wood and wire. If only. How I wish I could play the “Arkansas Traveler” or “Sweet Fern.” He did those, and so many other tunes, so well.

         There’s a stack of instructional books on how to play country-style fiddle around this house, somewhere. He used to buy them all the time, and was constantly brushing up on his music-making skills. One of these days I’ll be in that boat; able to play this thing, but wanting to learn more. That sound is just addictive, and I am going to learn how to do it. There’s also Youtube tutorials as well. Hell, there’s got to be some good ones. I mean, if there’s info out there on that platform on how to use a video-gaming console as a guided missile defense system, I’m sure I can learn a thing or two about playing a fiddle. 

         There was a time when it seemed like the sounds of old-time and bluegrass music would always be a constant in the house; that the fiddle would spend more time out of its case than cooped-up and resting against the old Sony hi-fi set in the living room. 

         Those were different days.

         There’s never a shortage of change afoot. Sometimes, it’s subtle, and a man can brace himself, then other times, it’s a steam train barreling down the tracks. 

         I’ve never been fond of change at all, and I started to see a little less of that world I used to know after my sweet grandmother passed. Little by little, I started seeing less and less of my grandfather. 

         Toward the end he started enjoying music again, and that was an immense blessing, still, he couldn’t bring himself to saw a melody out on his fiddle. 

         Here I am, now, finally able to look at the instrument, let alone try and play it, and play it I will. In the end time is all we have, and how to spend it is up to us.