A yard sale find and then some...

In a corner of my Sweetie's basement, which has been taken over by five adults' things held "until we get ready to get rid of them" or "until the end of June" when the surveyor shows to do a check on the value of the home, sits a country violin, in its case.

It was the thing which solidified my role as "king of the Gypsies" and mate to the woman with the greying brown hair (note: this story took place when things were much better, we were a lot younger and she was rather proud of the look her head carried. Things and hair styles changed and I zagged with those changes as best as I could).

It was my present to her. I acquired it during one of our weekend drives into the central Minnesota countryside, yelling at the top of our lungs "YARD SALE!" whenever we saw one of those hand made or manufactured signs. During one of our many stops (and after she went to the ladies room at the gas station before we arrived), we stopped at a large home with a even larger garage. They were doing a pre-estate sale.

"Look at all of this stuff, Mike!" she said, getting out of the car and almost running over to the clothing area. She held several knitted tops against her pale skin -- all which looked great to her -- and simply asked the large woman sitting in the lawn chair "How much for them all?"

The woman looked at her, then at me, and when I said "I'm not wearing them!" she smiled and said "How about a twenty dollar bill for all five of them?"

My Sweetie opened up her purse and produced the necessary currency. The woman gave her a plastic store bag and responded "Thank you!"

With knitted tops in her possession, she then looked around and then asked the woman "Do you have any Boy Scouting things? You know, old books, uniforms, jackets?"

The woman shook her head from side to side. "Young man came along and got a blue shirt -- I think it was Scouts -- with the scarf and everything..."

"Neckerchief" I attempted to correct her.

"Whatever. It's gone now." The woman reached over and grabbed a large soft drink cup and sucked on the straw. "You like music?"

I said "Sure! Whatcha got? Records? Old CDs? 8-tracks?"

"Well," the woman got up from the seat, revealing just how large she was, and stood there to get her bearings, I was thinking.

"You okay?" my Sweetie asked her. "You look a little tired."

"Girl," the woman said, "I've been just sitting there most of the morning. Come on back here....I think you might like this...."

She walked back to the rear of her garage and found a shelf with boxes and cases on it. She handed me a case and then we went back out to the light and to a table.

"I could tell you a whopper of a story about how someone famous played it or that it's haunted or what not....the truth is," the woman said, releasing the latches and opening the case, "My husband, rest his soul, bought this at an auction 30 years ago. We had it appraised and they said that it's only worth maybe a hundred dollars on a good day...."

The violin was in good shape. I thought it looked beautiful. I picked it up from the case and examined it. Everything was there except for one string which was broken.

"Didn't take lessons and it just stayed out there forever..." the woman said. "Forty dollars and it's yours. Maybe you could get one of yours to learn how to play it. My Gerald simply called it his "Widdle Biddle Diddle Fiddle".

I smiled at the woman's usage of the words "Biddle" and "Diddle". There's got to be some sexual connotation there, I was thinking.

"Sold!" My Sweetie motioned with her hands that she wanted to hold the instrument. I gently handed it over to her and as she was performing her own inspection, I produced two twenty dollar bills and handed it to the woman.

"This is so pretty, Mike. Thank you." she said to me. Then turning to the woman, she repeated the words "Thank you!" while placing the violin back to its case. Closing the case, she patted the violin as if it was an animal.

The woman returned to her chair and her drink, placing the two bills into an envelope with the other money she earned.

My Sweetie carried her new violin and her clothing back to the car. I followed behind, stalling out to look at some plastic folding boxes before saying "nah!" to myself and going to the car also.

"I'm going to remember this day, Mike, " my Sweetie said. "You know how much I love music and this will be a good item to place in our basement shelf above the television set. You know," she said kissing me on my neck, "one of the girls may decide to learn how to play this...or something like it...what did she said he called it?"

"He called it his widdle, biddle, diddle fiddle...."