She surprised me when she brought a leather case inside.
She had been trawling through the neighbourhood's hard rubbish with our housemate on an evening in the Summer of 2005/06. Since moving away from each of our parents' homes, my partner and I have always shown off a hard rubbish household. Couches, ornate furniture items and even wonderful stereo systems have all come from the sides of the road. This same evening she threw an old sculpted vase into the tray of the ute - and it has since been identified as a rare Castle Harris collectors piece worth hundreds of dollars even in its chipped state. But the most impressive find was in this tattered leather hardcase. She slid the case toward me and said it was for me: a beautiful old English banjo mandolin.
Of course it looked worse for wear. The instrument was dirty, the velum head had a large puncture and tear, what strings remained were rusted over and the fretboard was missing one of its metal inlays. Still what a terrible waste, I thought. And the instrument was put away in a cabinet of mine, little disturbed for nearly two years...
She had been trawling through the neighbourhood's hard rubbish with our housemate on an evening in the Summer of 2005/06. Since moving away from each of our parents' homes, my partner and I have always shown off a hard rubbish household. Couches, ornate furniture items and even wonderful stereo systems have all come from the sides of the road. This same evening she threw an old sculpted vase into the tray of the ute - and it has since been identified as a rare Castle Harris collectors piece worth hundreds of dollars even in its chipped state. But the most impressive find was in this tattered leather hardcase. She slid the case toward me and said it was for me: a beautiful old English banjo mandolin.
Of course it looked worse for wear. The instrument was dirty, the velum head had a large puncture and tear, what strings remained were rusted over and the fretboard was missing one of its metal inlays. Still what a terrible waste, I thought. And the instrument was put away in a cabinet of mine, little disturbed for nearly two years...
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