Marilyn's Photos - Dec 27 2025 - There's Still Time...

 

Are the good New Year’s jokes?  I don’t think so, but I decided that accordions make for good jokes.  "Foolishly, I left my accordion in the car. Sure enough, when I got back, the car window was shattered, glass all over the sidewalk, and inside... two accordions." A fellow walking into a pub says: "Do you want to hear my latest accordion joke?" "Now, I play the accordion" says the bartender, a large strapping fellow."That gentleman at the end of the bar, the one who look like a logger, he plays the accordion. And that big gentleman playing darts over there, he plays the accordion. Do you still want to tell your joke?" "No, I don't feel like explaining it three times." Q: “What is the definition of 'perfect pitch?'” A: “When you throw an accordion into the dumpster and hit a banjo. And then there are the cartoons.  Many more HERE. I found this in my picture library.  It was a doorfront on Bloor West.  It seems just as mysterious now as it was then.  A good contrast with accordion jokes.

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Mairlyn's Photos - Nov 17 2025 - Accordion Band

 

My sister was in an accordion band/orchestra when we were little.  I have a  memory of my parents dropping her off for a practice at a local hall, and there were a lot of children with accordions arranged like an orchestra. Why the accordion was so popular from the 1940s to the 1960s seems strange.  There were many orchestras during this time.  I assume it was the great European emigration after the war.   Which music school did we take accordion lessons at?  We all took lessons, as accordion was a beloved German instrument, and my grandfather played accordion. Elio Viola was a well-known accordionist and he had a highly successful Accordion School from the late 1940s in St. Catharines.  The Ryson’s Studio in St. Catharines is a candidate school we could have had lessons at.  They are known for having Polka King Walter Ostanek as a student.  The teachers were Ernst and son Boris Bergstrom - those are familiar names  They also opened the Master Conservatory in St. Catharines. I don’t recall that we went there. There are reminisces at a site called accordionists.info - The Accordionists Forum, and one of the contributors is Riccardo who regales with stories of his lifelong love of accordions and experiences in Hamilton and St. Catharines. Here’s the link. In the conversation between these accordionists, one of the participants still plays in an accordion orchestra - in the Netherlands.  To learn more about St. Catharines in the 1960s, 70s and 80s - there is a Facebook page HERE. Lots of pictures. Here’s an accordion keyboard picture.

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