After a brief stint in college and several months of playing Xbox, Jimi Swinlery felt the grips of wanderlust and decided to head west with friends. Last August, he added a new member to his vagabond troop: his faithful accordion, which he has named Cecilia.
“I had a history playing piano, and it just seemed like a good hobby to have on the road,” Swinlery said. “So I bought her for about $125 at a pawn shop and headed west.”
Swinlery departed from Morgantown, W.Va., with a few friends. When they reached South Dakota, however, Swinlery and some of his travel companions left their driver and began hitchhiking to the West Coast.
“Portland was really great for busking,” Swinlery said. “There was this famous doughnut shop, Voodoo Doughnut, where there were just huge lines on the sidewalk. I have a small repertoire, so by the time I had exhausted the six or so songs I knew, a new section of the line was in front of me.”
When Swinlery sets up every night, passersby ignore him at first. He attributes this to a sense of discomfort he believes people feel towards him. Once he begins playing and making jokes, though, people start listening to his music and begin giving their spare change.
“I think a lot of people would be surprised how little money you need to get by. I’ve gone weeks without even touching money,” he said.
Swinlery does not feel the need to generate money to transport him from town to town because he mostly hitchhikes. As for food, people often provide their leftovers from restaurants. Every once in a while, someone will offer to buy him a meal.
“I get to meet some really great people living this way and see a good side of the human race,” Swinlery said.
Swinlery constantly carries his accordion on his travels, and the wear of the estimated 8,000 miles it has traveled is evident. The instrument dates back to the late 1940s, according to Athens musician J.D. Hutchison, a self-described accordion expert.
Despite the age and wear on the accordion, however, Hutchison said Cecilia is in good condition and even recently showed Swinlery how to make repairs to the instrument.
Although Cecilia helps Swinlery earn money, he said he does not only perform to make a living.
“I do this for fun and to get attention,” he said. “Yeah, sometimes there’s money, but that’s not what my life is about. It’s easy to get along without money. I mean, the best is when someone comes up and says, ‘Wow, that is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Despite enjoying his years on the road, Swinlery said he is ready to settle down and is planning to live in Athens. With friends in the area and his family in nearby West Virginia, the city represents a compromise between the West and Swinlery’s hometown of Morgantown.
“After a while, you get sick of being the person who’s always bumming stuff, even if it’s great collecting stories along the way,” Swinlery said. “Athens is just perfect, and I feel like I’m qualified to pass judgment on cities because I’ve been around the whole country.”
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