Timeline of minor and major events
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100,000 Accordions are imported into the United States.
1960
I ask my new music teacher if I should be playing more scales and exercises. He tells me no, it doesn’t really matter much since it’s not like I’m going to grow up and be a professional musician.
The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show, beginning their first American tour.
1964
38,000 Accordions are imported into the United States.
1965
Perhaps the height of the International Folk Dance Movement, when a Folk Dance House is set up at the New York World’s Fair.
The musical Cabaret begins its Broadway run of 1,166 performances.
1966
Vatican II effects revolutionary changes in how music and liturgy are done in the Catholic Church emphasizing the use of English instead of Latin and allowing services for young people to feature music that is meaningful to them. The “Folk Mass” movement spreads in the United States.
There is some PBS classical music show on TV, and my father encourages me to watch because it is “good music.” But although he knows that classical is the proper music to listen to, he is bored and leaves the TV after a few minutes; he prefers French-Canadian folk music. My mother listens to Polish Polka Hour while she does the laundry. My own repertoire is understandably schizoid.
1967
1969 Woodstock Music Festival
31,000 Accordions are imported into the United States.
Source: Westfest Polka Mass
1970
I go head-to-head against Joe Klochonsky, each of us eighth graders trying to outplay the other at our local polka masses. I also play to win the love of B., but fail despite touching her elbow to elbow for a protracted period during one Language Arts class.
The Ohio National Guard shoots students protesting against the US invasion of Cambodia led by President Nixon.
The first polka mass-holy mass that combines sacred liturgy with Polish American folk art and customs-is celebrated.

1972
“You’re a composition major? I play, some piano. Can I see what sort of stuff you write?” But my roommate’s music has no normal staff or notation; I have no clue about how anyone would play it. Out of embarrassment, I tell no one at Oberlin that I can play accordion, and I study mathematics rather than music.
13,000 Accordions are imported into the United States.

1975
The Ramones release their first self-titled album.
1976
John Lennon is shot.
1980
Dead Kennedys release the album “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables” featuring “California Uber Alles”.
January in Boston, there’s little carpentry work to be had, and I am laid off a job. One depressing afternoon, I pick up my accordion from the closet. It had trailed me through dorm rooms and countless cheap apartments, although I hadn’t played for years. That afternoon, I played for the first time in three years and decided I would become a musician.
1981
The Lawrence Welk Show goes into syndication after 30 years of continuous broadcast.
I press rewind, then play, then rewind, and again and again, but I cannot figure out the tune. It’s a very simple Irish waltz, and if I could only see the sheet music, I could play it instantly. Rewind, play, rewind. Tears of frustration fall upon the tape recorder.
1982
Although being a Poultry Division Judge, or judge for any barnyard animal, really, would be more prestigious, I am proud to be Accordion Playing Contest Judge, and take my duties seriously. But my main duties at the Iowa State Fair are playing accordion six hours a day, fourteen days, in lederhosen.
1983
Source: www.deadkennedys.com
“Stop”, “hammer”, “jig”, “jam(b)”. These words are double-entendres, having different meanings in carpentry and music. I think of others on the drive from Boston to Berkeley, and think myself rather clever, “very unique” for being an accordion-playing carpenter. My first week exploring the Berkeley scene, I meet three carpenters who play accordion.
1984
After my mother’s funeral, I find myself more and more at St. Elizabeth’s Church, and I come to sing and then direct one of the choirs. Performing on stage, playing ethnic music seems less important, even trivial sometimes, and I gradually stop playing accordion in favor of voice, piano, and liturgical music.
1987
Source: Cotati Accordion Festival
The S.F. Accordion Club, after a period of dormancy, is founded, again.
1989
The first annual Cotati Accordion Music Festival.
The market for gigs in Soviet and Eastern European music goes up in periods of detente, down in periods of cold war aggression. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are more gigs available, but also a steady stream of well trained Russian musicians competing for jobs.
1991
A second grader playing Hot Cross Buns “backwards” could mean to a musician, playing in inversion, in retrograde, or in retrograde-inversion. We explore all possibilities, along with other intersections, in the Music and Math concert at school.
1994
After Mass, I tell the priest that I’ve stopped looking at other churches for music jobs and want instead to just come to St. Cuthbert’s to simply worship there. A week later, their organist abruptly dies, and I am hired as music director, a position I hold for five years.
Thursday afternoon. A fourth grade boy fidgeted in his chair, and against the newly waxed surface it squeaked at about an F-sharp. I stopped class and asked other students, one by one, to squeak their chairs. We identified the pitches. Friday, we worked on a piece I wrote scored for recorder and sqeaky chair ensemble. Monday, after the janitor mopped the floor over the weekend, our piece was unperformable.
Source: Peabody Auditorium
1995
Connor is fidgeting in his seat again and won’t play recorder properly, so it’s time for some innovative pedagogy. I discover that he plays much better if I hold him upside down in front of the class. He enjoys it too, except that he gets quite red in the face from prolonged blowing.
Willard Palmer (of the Palmer-Hughes Accordion Method) dies.
1996
I meet Boaz in his living room, before any of the Boaz Accordions storefronts. I walk in to buy a used accordion under $2,000 and walk out having bought a new Bugari costing several times that. Oh, well; Boaz was right.
1998
Source: Accordions Worldwide
The trouble with the door cue is that I have to start playing it a split second before the door opens in the film, or the cue looks off. The same is true of the other 199 cues in the film. The film of course rolls on, intolerant. Only one of the four shows were the cues consistently right on.
Michael Tilson Thomas champions the San Francisco Symphony in its “American Mavericks Music Festival.” One of the boldest festivals ever presented by a major American Orchestra, performances feature music by modern and contemporary American composers.
2000
The reason the other accordionist was fired, they tell me, was that he couldn’t follow the conductor’s downbeats very well. Since it’s only a day and a half before the first concert and most rehearsals have already happened, I work individually with the conductor before the dress rehearsal. All is fine. The music, the dancing, the words, all are gorgeous: Four Saints in Three Acts by Gertude Stein and Virgil Thompson.
2002
Of course Emily can’t control how fast she’s swinging on the trapeze, so it’s up to me to time my phrases to be in synch with her back and forth. In the recording studio, we rig up a silent video of her routine, I cue off of that, and that’s what we record.
2004
2005
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To be continued . . .