RARE is the child who reaches adulthood without hearing "you'd lose your right foot if it weren't attached" after confessing that a watch, a baseball mitt, or some other valuable had vanished.
But at the risk of over-generalizing, such absent-mindedness seems to be a particular affliction of musicians as well.
That's why the return of a 320-year-old Stradivarius cello stolen April 25 from Los Angeles Philharmonic principal cellist Peter Stumpf's front steps - he forgot it when he went inside - is a happy event. The instrument, valued at $3.5 million, belonged to the orchestra.
After a bicyclist was seen on security video pedaling away with the cello, a nurse found it near a trash bin. She hoped her boyfriend, a cabinetmaker, could repair it or turn it into a unique CD holder. Then she heard of the stolen cello, one of about 60 made by Stradivari in 1684. If her story withstands police scrutiny, she is in line for a $50,000 reward.
Amazingly, there are countless sagas of musicians' failure to treat their instruments as precious objects. Those who play strings seem particularly vulnerable, or maybe they just get more press.
Forgetting a violin or a cello on the front steps is rare, but leaving them in bars or on public transportation seems to happen a lot.
This year the first-chair violinist in Pennsylvania's Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Odin Rathnam, left a $95,000 Bartolomeo Calvaros in a New York bar. New York police found it in an alley behind the establishment. They also helped noted cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who left his $2.5 million Strad in a taxi in 1999. How does one overlook a cello in a taxi?
Also this year, Latvian artist Gidon Kremer, his mind on other things as he traveled to a guest appearance with the Baltimore Symphony, left his Guaneri del Gesu violin, valued at $3 million, on an Amtrak train. Baggage handlers recovered it.
In 2001 cellist Lynn Harrel lost his $4 million Strad, also in a New York taxi. He was blasted for rewarding the driver $75 for its return and belatedly threw in another $1,000.
Some musicians argue that their instruments are such extensions of themselves that they stop thinking about them.
You'd think it shouldn't be necessary to suggest to mature artists how to care for and safeguard their instruments, at home and on the road. But the evidence suggests they need help, and a checklist.
Or better yet: maybe even a wrist chain.
First Published May 22, 2004, 10:48 a.m.