SULLIVAN - On the face of it, Dr. Frederick Castle from Lowell, Ind., and retired Caterpillar Inc. worker James Parsley, who lives in Sullivan, don't seem to have a whole lot in common.

But Parsley took an instant liking to Castle's style of speaking when the two had a chance encounter at a Decatur yard sale. And the fact that the medical doctor died in 1910, 21 years before Parsley was born in Kentucky in 1931, didn't get in the way of their developing friendship at all.

The opening movement in the symphony of their acquaintance played like this: Parsley, 77, loves yard sales. He searches out goodies, hopes to resell them at a profit at auctions and is awfully good at it. And devoted, too: "Even when I was at Caterpillar, I used to work second shift so I could go to yard sales," Parsley says.

One day in 1986, he happened upon a Decatur backyard sale where he met Castle, who was looking a little battered. Parsley came to know the long-dead physician in the form of a crumbling 1906 book Castle had written about how to doctor violins to extract the very best sound.

Now it just so happens that Parsley does play a mean bluegrass guitar and has accompanied violinists in the Illinois Old-Time Fiddlers Association. But he's never played the fiddle himself, and, on the face of it, a 102-year-old book titled "Violin Tone-Peculiarities" doesn't sound like the overture to a beautiful friendship with a guy who's been deceased for almost a century. Parsley started reading, however, and knew it was the best 50 cents he'd ever spent.

"I just couldn't put the book down," recalls the man who once plowed through the Bible in three years by reading a chapter a morning. "That old doctor, he just had a way with him; he's a good writer."

Mixed in with lots of technical stuff about shaving wood sounding boards and varnish complexities, the reader is treated to some surprising verbal crescendos. Get a load of this little ditty directed at nasty people who knowingly build shoddy violins that sound like a cat being crucified:

"In these frauds, heartlessness is shown by the premeditated murder of Music," writes Castle. "�Poor Music! Standing aghast at sight of her favorite haunt no longer habitable! While professing friendship you, Mr. Fraud-builder, are the cause of her anguish. To you, and to such as you, and of you, I say 'Hell knoweth not a greater villain.' "

Parsley tore through all 307 pages and loved every note of it. He also decided the world of music should hear again the doctor's long silent voice and had the book reprinted at his expense in 1988. Parsley traveled to Lowell to research the doctor's history: A prominent local, he served in the Civil War, loved music and taught himself how to treat violins to make them sound beautiful. Parsley even wrote a preface to the book, explaining how it came to be in print again.

"I didn't do it for money or anything, but to get the book in the hands of people who can appreciate it," says Parsley, who has visited the doctor's grave. "He was a good ol' boy, and he deserves this."

He's handed out a copy to the Decatur Public Library and libraries throughout Central Illinois, sells copies to anyone who asks and also sends them to music teachers and others he thinks might benefit from a blast from the past. When the Herald & Review ran a story recently about the Chicago School of Violin Making, Parsley was on the phone in an instant to get their address and send along a copy.

Friends and fellow yard sale fanatics such as Sox Sutton say the thrill of the chase is always to turn up something valuable or just interesting, like this violin book. But he says to be smitten to the extent of Parsley is far from typical. "Sure, it's unusual to actually have a book reprinted," says Sutton, 70, who also lives in Sullivan.

"But Jim knew what he had here, a one-of-a-kind conversation piece."

If you would like to meet Castle and explore the art of violin sound therapy, Parsley has still got some copies left from his original 500-strong reprint. The rest are scattered across 23 states, with several being read as far away as Ireland and Australia.

"When I had stood there in Lowell and looked at the doctor's grave, I got to thinking, 'If we could trade places, would he have done the same thing with the book for me?' " Parsley says. "And then I thought about his great love for music, of wanting to make the violin sound good, and I just knew that, yes, he would have done all this for me, too."

treid@herald-review.com|421-7977