Dad preached at Anchor today. He pastored the church from 1995-1998, leading the people to accept the idea of a restart, which occurred in October 1998 (so we’re coming up on our 10th anniversary). He and Mom have attended services at Anchor several times over the years, but this is the first time Dad has preached. Pastor Tim’s on vacation, having just completed (on Friday) his last class at Trinity toward his MDiv.

Mom and I played our accordions together, a duet of “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” Now, I hadn’t played my accordion in a couple years. Shame on me. But “Mansion” is easy. I can get disoriented in the black buttons, but with “Mansion” you only use three of them, and they sit next to each other. Mom and I practiced Saturday night, and it went great. Easy.

Not quite so easy this morning in church.

First, I put my arms through the accordion straps and lifted it onto my shoulders. But Patty, a few rows back, was pointing at something. Turns out the strap was caught around the front of the accordion. If I had started playing, the strap would have been holding several keys down, making a horrible sound. So I needed to remove the accordion and start over. I felt silly.

I had already undone the clasps holding the bellows together, so as I hoisted it up again, it was making noise. “What are you doing?” Mom asked.

Then the strap got caught again, and I had to undo it. Mom was all ready to go, but by this time, I was totally flustered.

As soon as I had the accordion situation, Mom started off. But I still needed to find where to put my fingers. I couldn’t locate the “C” black button, and, like a dork, had to bend the accordion out to physically look at it. Then my right hand wasn’t sure it was on the proper keys (it wasn’t). With an accordion, you can’t really see what you’re doing.

So while Mom was charging ahead, doing a marvelous job, I was fumbling around, hitting the wrong buttons and wrong keys in a two-handed train wreck, and forgetting to open and close the bellows. Can you spell “I feel stupid and highly conspicuous”?

Finally, Mom paused and said, “Do you want to start over?”

Indeed I did. This time I got my fingers in the right places, and it went fairly well. We had planned to play two verses. After one verse, Mom said, “Do you want to go again?” And I said yes. Finally, I actually played the song right.

The moral of the story is two-fold:

• Don’t NOT do something for two years, and think you can ace it, you foolish prima dona.
• Don’t put yourself in a situation where Mom can totally show you up.