In preparation for a return to a wandering lifestyle, I had to come to some decisions in regards to my accordion… namely, my old accordion—a full-size 120 bass monster with three voices (7 switches) on the treble side and and two voices (3 switches) on the bass side—was too large to travel with. I had a small, broken, 80 bass accordion that was wet-tuned (and out of tune), which one portland repair place told me wasn’t worth fixing. But I took it to a second opinion, and I’m glad I did. Eileen Hagen’s Accordion Center fixed it up. If you’re in Portland, she’s the lady to see for repairs. Her prices are reasonable, she sells accordions for good prices, she takes trades, and she—as far as I know—treats people right. She (or rather, her technician) fixed my accordion in less than 24 hours… retuning most of it, putting in a missing reed, putting on new straps, back plate, etc., and I’m pretty happy with it. So now I have one voice on each side but damn it’s light. and all I’m giving up is some volume and the diminished chords.

As soon as I got off the bus to walk to the train station though, the leather of the handle ripped out of my hand and I ended up carrying the damn thing on my shoulder. Sigh. Making a new one of webbing.