Scan a room in Lou Zanardi's neat and modest house, and you'll find the clues of his lifelong love affair. Pages of music lie on a table, and protective red cloth hides a rectangular-shaped object in two of the rooms. The tables and shelves are populated with snapshots of Zanardi, family and friends, and in most of them, he's hugging the telltale bellows across his chest. His love is the accordion.

A yellowing 1950's-era newspaper advertisement featuring Zanardi "in person" at the Bel-Aire Club, playing on Friday and Saturday evenings from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. is framed on the wall.

"That was my first professional gig. I was 17 years old," said Zanardi, excitement on his face as he goes on to describe the lively night club scene Napa had in those days.

And between the Italian names that roll off Zanardi's tongue as he describes his old employers and friends from that time, one begins to realize that the accordion is that 'most Italian' of instruments. It was, after all, first patented in 1829 by Cyrill Demian in Vienna. It's the least cool of any known instrument in the musical universe, and it's romantic beyond words.

To Zanardi, it's always been the latter.

"They used to have these Italian picnics on Mt. George," said Zanardi. "I would sit at the edge of the band stand and listen to the accordion player."

At age 4, Zanardi had found his muse. He took lessons on the instrument, and by 5 he gave his first recital at Lincoln School, at the site of New Technology High School.

For more than 60 years, Zanardi has remained faithful to the instrument. The decades so full of performances, that they have blended together.

"There was a time when every Italian in the valley had to have an accordionist at their wedding," joked Zanardi.

When a baseball scout from the White Sox asked Zanardi to try out for the team, he had to turn down the offer. "What if I hurt my fingers?" said Zanardi, as he curled up his hands and glanced down at them. "Then I couldn't play the accordion."

Throughout the years, there was no pressure of marriage, no drinking, no smoking, said Zanardi. Music has remained the love of his life.

Zanardi will be 66 and without a regret to speak of, though his chosen instrument has lost much of it's following. That small incubator of the Mother country that produced Zanardi, has run out of accordionists, and we may be looking at the last of his kind.

"Trios are a thing of the past, people want a disc jockey (at weddings) now," said Zanardi.

Despite that, Zanardi is a fixture at the Jarvis Conservatory for Saturday Opera Night, a position he took over from Babe Pallotta. He also plays at Allegria in downtown Napa, and was practicing romantic ballads for the booked-up Valentine's Day diners at the restaurant.