Forrest Gump"s Red Violin
It was a dark and stormy night.
A feeble old man's hands shivered withexcited anticipation as he carved away the last curled shaving from theancient piece of maple.
"Magnifique!" he exclaimed at his masterpiece as he caressed it like amother with a newborn child.
He kissed the smooth wood then gently hung itfrom a wire attached to a gold-gilded chandelier.
The shapely object swayedgently above the master's head.
Flickering candlelight danced with theox-hair brush as the violin received its first of more than twenty finecoats of hot oil varnish.
The violin was completed and labeled at the poignant stroke of midnight onthe start of the year 1912 in Lyon, France.
The year would later be knownfor other historic events such as the establishment of the Republic ofChina, the discovery of the South Pole, and more notably, the addition ofprizes to Cracker Jack boxes.
All these events are shadowed by the creationof a violin that would someday find its way to me.
My violin's rust-brown varnish had just finished curing when it was wrappedin fine silk and sent away in a wooden case.
Due to highway congestion andno available carrier pigeons, French aviator Henri Seimet was asked to deliver the violin and made the first non-stop airplane flight from Paris toLondon in three hours.
The violin's first owner was the great-grandson of legendary violinistNicolò Paganini who suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
The violin'sastonishing tone helped auditioners overlook the player's affliction andearned the him a gig with an 8-man band on a cruise ship.
The Atlanticvoyage was uneventful, unless you consider that last bit when the "Titanic"stuck an ice shelf and sank.
The violin's last tune with the band that night was a jolly rendition of"Roll Out the Barrel" before it was laid to rest in the coffin case, its owner saying a final goodbye.
The ship went down in a fury of bubbles and miraculously the case came up out of the vessel with an infant sleeping peacefully on top.
When the rescue ships arrived several hours later, infant Eva Braun and violin were in the care of another survivor on a nearby lifeboat: Margaret "Molly" Brown.
Eva was reunited with her family and would grow up to make poor decisions inpolitics and boyfriends.
The violin, however, belonged to no one and wasdonated to a music society as a tax write-off.
Joe Dawson, an eccentric racecar driver, purchased the violin (also for tax reasons, though historiansdispute this fact) and won the first Indianapolis 500 race with the violinin the trunk for good luck.
Soon afterwards Dawson lost his bet with Woodrow Wilson that the latterwould not win the Presidential election; the winner took the violin.
Wilsongave the violin to former ice hockey teammate Igor Stravinsky, who composed many of his best works usingthe violin.
A year later, in 1913, the premiere of "The Rite of Spring" waspoorly received and fights broke out in the audience.
Stravinsky himself wasso upset due to its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, leavingthe violin behind in his haste.
Historians believe this is when my violin received extensive damage to thelower bout at the end-pin.
The facts that follow are fuzzy due to poordocumentation, but it is believed the violin was discovered in the theatrerubble and taken to a medicine man in Cuba who repaired the violin with guargum and papyrus extracts.
The dear violin spent the next forty-nine yearspassed from village virtuoso to virtuoso, who played for dignitaries,millionaires and other ridiculous people.
This happy holiday in the violin's life ended in 1962 when one villageviolinist, fearing the worst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, hid the violin ina fall-out shelter behind 200-cans of extra-juicy pork and beans.
In 2005the canned food's expiration date came and as the cans were being disposedof the violin was discovered again.
A compulsive gambler who worked with the fallout shelter's janitorialservice stole the violin and put the violin up for auction on Ebay.
It waswon by my cousin's dog groomer's babysitter's nephew for 50 pesos.
I heardthere was a violin in the family and traded the guy an old lawnmower (heneeded the wheels for a go-cart) for the violin, which is now safely in mypossession and care.
Over this past year I have pondered over the mysterious label inside theviolin, "Lyon 1912," and the spider-like cracks on the bottom that seem tobe so expertly repaired using methods unknown to local luthiers.
Hence Itook it upon myself to extensively research the history of my violin andlearned what little I could about the violin's history, which I havepresented here truthfully to you.
Strangely, the people I've shared my flawless findings with have beendisappointed as they're only marginally glamourous or mysterious.
Sometimesthe truth is pretty boring.
I wish it could be more than that.
So now when people ask for stories about my violin's past, I lie and say myviolin was discovered in Elvis' dead grasp in a Vegas hotel bathroom.
That'll keepthem interested.
A feeble old man's hands shivered withexcited anticipation as he carved away the last curled shaving from theancient piece of maple.
"Magnifique!" he exclaimed at his masterpiece as he caressed it like amother with a newborn child.
He kissed the smooth wood then gently hung itfrom a wire attached to a gold-gilded chandelier.
The shapely object swayedgently above the master's head.
Flickering candlelight danced with theox-hair brush as the violin received its first of more than twenty finecoats of hot oil varnish.
The violin was completed and labeled at the poignant stroke of midnight onthe start of the year 1912 in Lyon, France.
The year would later be knownfor other historic events such as the establishment of the Republic ofChina, the discovery of the South Pole, and more notably, the addition ofprizes to Cracker Jack boxes.
All these events are shadowed by the creationof a violin that would someday find its way to me.
My violin's rust-brown varnish had just finished curing when it was wrappedin fine silk and sent away in a wooden case.
Due to highway congestion andno available carrier pigeons, French aviator Henri Seimet was asked to deliver the violin and made the first non-stop airplane flight from Paris toLondon in three hours.
The violin's first owner was the great-grandson of legendary violinistNicolò Paganini who suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
The violin'sastonishing tone helped auditioners overlook the player's affliction andearned the him a gig with an 8-man band on a cruise ship.
The Atlanticvoyage was uneventful, unless you consider that last bit when the "Titanic"stuck an ice shelf and sank.
The violin's last tune with the band that night was a jolly rendition of"Roll Out the Barrel" before it was laid to rest in the coffin case, its owner saying a final goodbye.
The ship went down in a fury of bubbles and miraculously the case came up out of the vessel with an infant sleeping peacefully on top.
When the rescue ships arrived several hours later, infant Eva Braun and violin were in the care of another survivor on a nearby lifeboat: Margaret "Molly" Brown.
Eva was reunited with her family and would grow up to make poor decisions inpolitics and boyfriends.
The violin, however, belonged to no one and wasdonated to a music society as a tax write-off.
Joe Dawson, an eccentric racecar driver, purchased the violin (also for tax reasons, though historiansdispute this fact) and won the first Indianapolis 500 race with the violinin the trunk for good luck.
Soon afterwards Dawson lost his bet with Woodrow Wilson that the latterwould not win the Presidential election; the winner took the violin.
Wilsongave the violin to former ice hockey teammate Igor Stravinsky, who composed many of his best works usingthe violin.
A year later, in 1913, the premiere of "The Rite of Spring" waspoorly received and fights broke out in the audience.
Stravinsky himself wasso upset due to its reception that he fled the theater in mid-scene, leavingthe violin behind in his haste.
Historians believe this is when my violin received extensive damage to thelower bout at the end-pin.
The facts that follow are fuzzy due to poordocumentation, but it is believed the violin was discovered in the theatrerubble and taken to a medicine man in Cuba who repaired the violin with guargum and papyrus extracts.
The dear violin spent the next forty-nine yearspassed from village virtuoso to virtuoso, who played for dignitaries,millionaires and other ridiculous people.
This happy holiday in the violin's life ended in 1962 when one villageviolinist, fearing the worst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, hid the violin ina fall-out shelter behind 200-cans of extra-juicy pork and beans.
In 2005the canned food's expiration date came and as the cans were being disposedof the violin was discovered again.
A compulsive gambler who worked with the fallout shelter's janitorialservice stole the violin and put the violin up for auction on Ebay.
It waswon by my cousin's dog groomer's babysitter's nephew for 50 pesos.
I heardthere was a violin in the family and traded the guy an old lawnmower (heneeded the wheels for a go-cart) for the violin, which is now safely in mypossession and care.
Over this past year I have pondered over the mysterious label inside theviolin, "Lyon 1912," and the spider-like cracks on the bottom that seem tobe so expertly repaired using methods unknown to local luthiers.
Hence Itook it upon myself to extensively research the history of my violin andlearned what little I could about the violin's history, which I havepresented here truthfully to you.
Strangely, the people I've shared my flawless findings with have beendisappointed as they're only marginally glamourous or mysterious.
Sometimesthe truth is pretty boring.
I wish it could be more than that.
So now when people ask for stories about my violin's past, I lie and say myviolin was discovered in Elvis' dead grasp in a Vegas hotel bathroom.
That'll keepthem interested.
Source...