The Music Shop All the music lessons made a terrible noise in the basement where I went every week to learn accordion so I could be like Lawrence Welk. I sat on a red vinyl chair next to Mr. Reese in one of the little rooms where he’d tap his pointer on the music stand in time with “Carnival of Venice.” No matter how many air wicks they opened down there, I could still smell the mold. “ONE and two and three and four and ONE and two and three and four and ...” so it went for ten years. Finally, I won a trophy for playing “Flight of the BumbleBee” better than anybody in three states. The man who owned the store had only one ear but could play every single instrument better than anybody. He had an accordion student named Charlie who won a trophy for playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” better than anybody in all the states in the whole country. But when Charlie came home from Vietnam he kept wearing his green beret and spinning around to attack people standing behind him at the grocery store. The man with one ear said he’d never have another student like Charlie.