Oma Lore's Lute

We found a treasure upstairs.

You see, my family will move into the upstairs part of my wife's Grandma (or Oma, around here) Lore's (pronounced LOR-eh, but close enough to "Laura" for English ears) house. Between my wife and I, Lore is the last remaining grandparent, and my daughter's only surviving great grandparent (duh). She's seen a lot in her 90 plus years, from war to Wirtschaftswunder to Wiedervereingung. She was a nurse who helped World War II veterans after the war when the fighting was over and Europe split. This included a young soldier who was blinded on the Eastern front just as the Russians were closing in. The young soldier would eventually fall in love with her, marry her and bring her back to the house where we will live - the house where my father-in-law was born. (Home births were a necessity before they were a trend)

This means, of course, we keep finding treasures as we clean out the cupboards and closets. Upstairs, there are enough built in wardrobes to occupy the Pevensie children for weeks. So, I was happy, but not particularly surprised when, while struggling to put together a chest of drawers from IKEA (carpenter I am not), my mother-in-law graciously interrupted my work to show the ancient instrument she had found.

It was a beautiful old lute, not quote broken, but decayed with age and non-use. It was wrapped in a wonderful cloth case that tied up in strings at the top, like a bag of coins. The instrument is about two and a half feet long. It has a skinny, chestnut-brown neck with enough room for eight metal strings (at the moment there are only four). The bottom is shaped like a fat teardrop and is more of a birch color, while the rounded back extends a good six inches with its brown and birch stripes. There's a pleasantly shaped oval hole under the bridge, and beneath that is what I would call a pick guard on my guitar, but perhaps it's a finger guard for the Lute, with a painting of some spiky flowers crossed behind a mini-Lute. I see it and I imagine Bards of the Middle Ages, traveling from town to town to tell of wondrous stories while playfully plucking those twangy strings.

It's unplayable right now, and nicked up for good measure. It belonged to Oma Lore, who used to play guitar and piano, but had not played on her Lute since World War II. I asked my father-in-law why this was, and he was of the opinion that in spite of her better efforts, musical talent didn't run through the family's genes. By way of an example, he told me that he's much happier with heavy machinery, and a chainsaw ringing through the forest is a song in his book.

In the meantime, I intend to take the Lute to a music shop to see if anyone there can revive it. If it's beyond repair, then it'll make a hip deco piece for my office. If not, does anyone out there want to teach me to play the lute? I can pay you in song.