The Long Way Home…. February 7, 2026
Having the position of being a museum curator and collector of accordions for the last 17 years, has connected me with numerous folks who have taken interesting paths in their pursuit of music and life. I try to pass these stories along to all of you in the hope that they will be a benefit to you and serve as a guide and reference point for success in your own musical journey. The following story is a serious one, but it has, I think, a happy ending.
I met Ted while in Catholic grammar school. He was a couple of years younger than me, but we had something in common…the accordion. We were taking lessons from the same teacher and even played for our classes and the nuns at school. We stayed in touch over the years with Ted moving on to playing the guitar and soon thereafter he found his true love in a set of drums. He was very good with those drums, so good that he found himself on stage with a band at Woodstock in 1969. They played for the crowd between the big-name singers and rock bands.
I lost touch with Ted somewhere along the way, but he suddenly surfaced some years ago when I started our accordion museum. His story, I’m afraid, is all too common. He bought into the 60’s hard rock lifestyle 100%. As he would say, “I did it all, from the early days in the1950’s of booze, butts and broads, into the 1960’s and beyond when we did whatever we wanted and whenever the urge hit us.”
But more recently, I was surprised to hear that he was back to playing his original accordion. And he also told me that he came back to his faith. Jesus Christ was now in his life. He had been with quite a few women over the years and never settled down with anyone in particular. But he told me about someone he had stayed with for a while and then very suddenly, she left him. He happened to meet her again sometime later. To his great shock and regret, she told him that she left him to have an abortion and that it was most probably his child. That stunned and hurt Ted enormously, and he fell into a time of deep depression.
He credits the accordion music as it was a great help to him in coming out of his depression. It not only brought him back to a more sensible and simpler time in his life, but he felt that the songs and the music itself had a palpable effect on his recovery. By making music again, he also noted that the process of recovery rested, to a certain extent, literally in his own hands. However, it was his desire to someday see his child that brought him to his knees before God.
Ted’s gone now. But he sent me a few short messages before he passed, and he referenced Matthew chapter 25 in the Bible. He felt strongly that this piece of Scripture is the true roadmap for getting home. I think he was right, and I would like to think he made it home.
If you look at the actual words of Christ in Matthew chapter 25, you’ll see that it is Jesus’ final teaching to us before His death and resurrection. He is preparing His disciples for the long stretch of history before His return.
The more I talk to people like Ted about their experiences with the accordion, the more I believe there is something extremely unusual, beneficial and other worldly about its sound.
Walter S Landor, the English poet, once wrote: “Music is God’s gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.”
It may have been the long way home, but I’m very certain Ted made it.
Paul Ramunni
New England Accordion Connection & Museum Co.
NEACMC.com
860-833-1374
An Accordion Story by HMC Ambassador Angelo Paul Ramunni
