Mel and Irene Treakle, Kay’s parents, were avid square dancers. They taught a class, Aces and Laces, on Wednesday nights. Mel called weekly Saturday night dances. “Oom-pah music”, as Kay called it, hit their sweet spot.
A neighbor across the street taught the accordion, a regular feature of square dance music. Mel signed up his daughter Karen, and later Karen’s younger sister Kay, for lessons. Karen became adept, and was entered in a Washington State competition for children. Second graders, I believe. She won. State champ. And several years later Kay won the same contest, though she promptly stopped playing. She wanted to learn the guitar, like the Beatles.
Karen, however, kept her accordion, moved on to other fields, and needed to find a place to store her instrument while she was in nursing school. Kay lived in a group house in Seattle, and agreed to allow Karen to keep the accordion in the basement, where it sat for several years. When Karen finally came to pick it up, the neglected instrument had molded, and sustained water damage.
In subsequent years, Karen often brought up the story at family gatherings, as a way to needle her sister. Kay couldn’t care less, but telling the story of how Kay destroyed Karen’s promising musical career became an annual ritual. Kay got bored at some point, and decided to co-opt the story, by amplifying it. She recruited family members to tell it themselves. One Xmas Alie and Hanna, Karen’s daughters, sang a satirical duet memorializing the tragedy.
Another Xmas everyone told accordion jokes. Their mom, Irene, in her 90s, brought down the house with “What did the accordion player get on their intelligence test?” Answer: “Drool.”
Finally, to pre-empt their sister, Kay and Kandy purchased and packaged a used accordion, and gave it to Karen for Xmas of 2009.
Kay figured that if Karen ever brought up the story again, then everyone would demand that Karen perform. The needling stopped.