The Mandolin or The Hooligans

Last Sunday evening, as my older brother Ted did his end of the weekend sojourn driving around the area and listening to “This American Life” on PBS, he came upon an unusual sight. Leaning against a tree in Parsonfields was a mandolin.

Yes, the stringed musical instrument that is in the lute family that evolved in Italy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Not the most common of instruments these days so it is even more unusual that Ted saw it leaning against a tree in the woods of Parsonfields.

He wondered about this phenomenon as he drove along and wondered why the instrument was there. He thought about going back but since he didn’t know who put it there and why, he didn’t want to just drive off with it. Besides, in his mind, it might have been a decoy set up by some hooligans to lure him into a trap in order to rob him.

Yes, this is where my brother’s mind went. Not that someone lost their mandolin and someone else leaned it against a tree so it could be found again. But that it was a decoy being used to lure travelers to their doom.

He is telling me this story when we spoke this evening because the other part to it was that he was at a customer’s house today (he repairs computers…among other computer related activities) and this person, the customer, repairs stringed instruments. Ted told him about the mandolin in the middle of nowhere and the gentleman asked why he didn’t go back and get it. After all, he would have been happy to make sure it worked for Ted.

Did Ted tell him that he was sure it belonged to someone who would come back looking for it? No, of course not.

Did Ted tell him any number of other explanations for the mandolin in the woods? No, of course not.

Ted told him the hooligan explanation.

Yup, my brother explained to this gentleman that he was concerned about the mandolin being a decoy and that hooligans may rob him or rough him up and he just didn’t want to take that chance. As if, in the small town of Parsonfields, there are a group of people (aka the hooligans) waiting in the woods for some unsuspecting traveler to come down the road, stop their vehicle and pick up a mandolin leaning against a tree. Then they would rob and/or assault said traveler and then go on their merry way strumming their mandolin and singing some jaunty little tune.

Right…that is a logical explanation for the mandolin in the woods.

Meaning of this story…my brother has an active imagination.

Or, there are a band of hooligans roaming around Parsonfields with their mandolin.

But I think the former is the case. After all, he is my brother and I have known him my whole life. His mind really does work this way…strange as it may seem.