Italo-American Accordion hits the Big 10-0 (and Trimble Motors turns 80)

Most of my career was spent in short-lived companies. Like most enterprises, especially in high tech, the sell-by date was a decade or two from date of origin.  Vestiges of most of the places I worked survive, but the original “bright idea” light bulb has long-since dimmed.

Pretty much the only places I’ve worked that have survived intact are restaurants: Durgin-Park and the Union Oyster House. The Oyster House has been shuckin’ (oysters) and jivin’ since 1826, and Durgin has been making the world’s best Indian Pudding (and, yes, there is such a thing) for “around 180 years.”

Most of the stores of my youth (and middle age) are gone. No Denholm’s. No Filene’s. No Lechmere Sales. No Woolworth’s. No Gilchrist’s. No Jordan’s. Just the bland and ubiquitous Macy’s, and the even blander and ubiquitous-er Walmart.

Most of the banks I’ve used have disappeared. I believe my first account – with bankbook, of course – was People’s in Worcester. Or was it Mechanics? Whatever it was has no doubt been swallowed up in the vast maw of Bank of America.

Creative destruction, come on down!

Some businesses – other than Durgin and Union – have managed to hang on.

I passed by Trimble Motors in Worcester every day on my way to and from school. It was on the corner of the street we lived on until I was seven, when we moved from my grandmother’s to a stand-alone, single family home on the next block. Trimble is a used car lot, and it’s been in the used car biz since 1930. 

Trimble Motors: go figure.

The start of the Great Depression probably wasn’t the most auspicious time to open a business. On the other hand, if you were going to open a business in 1930, a used car lot in Main South Worcester was probably a pretty darned good idea. Plenty of inventory to be had from those trying to keep the wolf from their door by selling off the Model-T, and the few folks buying cars were likely to be looking to cadge a bargain on a flivver.

All hail, Trimble Motors!

Forever in peace may its plastic pennants wave!

Given all the ephemeral institutions out there, I was heartened to receive a note from my Chicago-land cousin, Ellen, on the 100th anniversary being observed by her city’s Italo-American Accordion Company.

It’s not actually all that clear – at least from I-A’s web site – that they have been around for a full 100 years.  The home page claims “family owned an operated since 1915”, but elsewhere notes  that “in the early 1900's, the first phase of what would become the oldest accordion company in the United States opened for business on Taylor Street in Chicago, Illinois.”

Whatever.

If WLS says 100 years, I’m with them.

I wonder whether, somewhere in those 100 years, either my Uncle Jack or my Uncle Bob darkened Italo-American’s door.

They were not, themselves, Italo-Americans. They were, like the wunnerful, wunnerful Lawrence Welk,  Germano-Americans. But they both, like the wunnerful, wunnerful Lawrence Welk, played the accordion.

Jack did so professionally, with his 1950’s western-style-polka band, Jake Wolf and his Midwesterners. I can picture the publicity still – Jake and his Midwesterners in snappy silk neckerchiefs and cowboy hats, Jake with his accordion, one guy with a bass.

I actually don’t recall Jack playing the accordion, although I do have vivid memories of his playing the piano.  But I do remember Bob playing for us. I’m trying to reconcile the mid-1950’s Elvis wannabe with the sideburns, perpetual cigarette, and car with the foam pink dice dangling from the rear-view mirror, with the happy-go-lucky teenage guy tickling the accordion ivories for his adoring nieces and nephews. 

Did Jack and Bob shop at Italo? Or were there enough accordion-playing Germanos on the North Side of Chicago that they could pick and choose where to go for a new accordion or a repair, without having to truck over to 51st and Kedzie to a bunch of Italos?

Alas, as the ethnic groups that played the accordion became more and more assimilated, fewer and fewer kids took up the accordion. Then we got to “Meet the Beatles”, and even the most ethnic kid wanted to play the guitar or drums, not the accordion.

Yet it still survives, a staple instruments for Tejano, klezmer, and Irish bands.

Here’s a shot of an Italo-American model. Only $1,395, and made in the US of A when we still made things like accordions. (Italo’s are now made in Italy, of all places.)  Not that I’m going to take up the accordion in my old age, but it is a thing of beauty.  Makes me want to hear someone pump out The Blue Skirt Waltz or Lady of Spain.  And makes me so bummed that my sister Trish has a different cable service and no longer gets RFD-TV, home of Polka Joe’s “Happy Music for Happy People” show.

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A tip of my virtual Jake Wolf and his Midwesterners’ cowboy hat to my cousin Ellen.  And I also want to note that Pink Slip is no stranger to the accordion-related post.