Finding a dilapidated, old accordion in a junk store in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, turned Susan Dietrich's life around. At the time, back in the early seventies when Richard Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate fiasco and the Vietnam war was still raging on, she and her husband, Joel, and their tiny daughter, were political exiles living like refugees in their own country, terrified that Joel would be imprisoned for having gone underground to avoid being drafted. For nine years they had subsisted on spare change and meager sales of their artwork on the streets of Boston.
The discovery and purchase of that little squeeze-box inspired Susan to take it into battle, the war on their own poverty. Down into dark, noisy Park Street Station she went, where she slowly learned to pick out simple, familiar tunes like \"Take Me Out to the Ballgame,\" and \"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.\" There must have been something quaintly charming about this emaciated street waif literally singing for her supper, for in the very first hour she made twenty dollars in change, plus a twenty dollar bill from an elderly couple wishing her well. She soon discovered that by playing from early morning rush hour through the entire day, she could pull in over eighty dollars, an impressive amount for the times and on the street, while Joel stayed home caring for the baby.
