Attention Deficit Device

I am playing the fiddle near the swimming pool at my hotel in Dothan. I always play in the mornings. Routine. I’ve been on the road for 14 days, playing music and performing my one-man spasm in different states.

There are kids by the pool, playing on phones, texting each other although they’re two feet apart.

The hotel radio is playing “Beat It” (1983) by Michael Jackson. The song I am warming up on is “Blackberry Blossom” (1860).

My grandfather always said the beauty of the fiddle was that, no matter how many people were around you, whenever you started to play, magically, everyone nearby would suddenly leave the room.

But that’s not the case this morning. As I play, a young boy quits playing with his phone and wanders toward me. Without saying a word, he sits in a chair and listens. When I am finished, he applauds.

Finally, he speaks. “Is that hard?”

“Sort of.”

I hand him the fiddle. He tries to play. The music he makes sounds horrible. Welcome to the club, I tell him.

So I give the boy a cursory lesson. I teach him to hold the bow, and how to play “Do Lord, Do Remember Me.” Not a hard tune to play. Impressively, within only minutes, the boy is playing better-ish.

The radio music overhead is now “Call Me,” by Blondie (1980). Which sounds like a dying animal caught in a Cuisinart.

Meantime, more children gather around us, watching the boy play. Amazingly, nobody is on their phones anymore, texting, scrolling, buying crypto currency, etc.

The boy stares at the fingerboard with laser focus, already playing better than the fiddle’s owner.

The music overhead is now “Step by Step” by New Kids on the Block, á la (1990). A song which features the same musical sensitivity as a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.

But the kids don’t hear the radio anymore. They are half mesmerized by a fiddle. The kid’s little sister says, “Can I try?”

Brother passes Sister the instrument. She plays “Do Lord.” Within five minutes, she plays better than Brother.

“I really like this!” she remarks.

And as the little girl is steadily improving, the radio is now playing “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode (1990), which features vocals that sound a lot like premeditated strangulation.

Even so, the kids still don’t notice the radio music. The kids are hypnotized by the ancient music of our ancestors.

After several minutes, the kid’s parents are ready to leave, but the children are still transfixed.

“Do we HAVE to go?”

“Yes,” the parents say. “Put that fiddle down.”

The instrument is returned to my clumsy hands.

“Thanks for letting us play,” the children shout sincerely.

I watch them walk away as Madonna plays overhead. The song is “Like a Virgin,” which is arguably the worst thing to ever be produced by the 20th century, with the exception of maybe communism, or Miracle Whip.

But I overhear the handful of kids humming “Do Lord” as they walk away. When the children have disappeared, I’m left holding my instrument. But I have warmth inside. An overwhelming feeling that our kids are going to be okay if we can just get the phones out of their hands for a few minutes.