poopdeck's fiddle

Greg Fallis

My grandfather's real name was Norman, but everybody in the family called him Poopdeck (after Popeye the Sailor's father -- Poopdeck Pappy). He's been dead a long time, but I still have one of his fiddles. It's a Maggini style violin, made by Sebastian Götz around 1900. The Götz family has been making violins since the 1880s.

At some point in the instrument's history, a rattlesnake's rattle was slipped inside. I can only assume when my father was a boy he (or one of his brothers) was goofing around with the rattle and slid it inside. Who knows why boys do anything?


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