The Piano

When we lived on Gilbert Road, David bought a $25 piano. And what a piano. It was a full upright grand, painted off-white by what must have been a team of chimpanzees, with paint puddles in the corners and brush strokes running in all directions. There were some accents as well, in green or metallic gold, that were slapped on with the finesse of a fingerpaint artist. The keyboard was a series of broken keys that had clearly degenerated into anarchy, each sounding, if it sounded at all, with a detuned eerieness unrelated to any other key.

With the help of my six brothers, David loaded the piano into the back of a pickup, where it rested, unsecured except by the passenger's hands, while he drove it to our house, and proudly exhibited it to me. I looked at David in wonderment. "You paid $25 for this?"

"We'll fix it up!" he said with enthusiasm. First, he found a man who restored old pianos, but who wasn't able to paint the interior of his house. David, who learned housepainting from his brother Steve, painted the required rooms, and in time we had a gorgeous piano whose gleaming dark-red finish would set off any living room that wasn't as firmly rooted in the late 20th century as ours was. The inside workings were repaired as well.

David then met Ada's piano tuner, who taught David how to tune a piano. Armed with a set of tuning forks, a special wrench, and a how-to book, David tuned the piano--an arduous task, with three strings per key. But the piano sounded much better. David also repaired the keytops by ordering the ivory-like veneers, shaping them to match each key, and cementing them into place.

The piano was then not only beautiful to see, but had a full gorgeous sound. We enjoyed it for quite a while, but it was difficult to move (and we moved quite often in those early years) and clashed with our emerging contemporary tastes. At one point when we were moving, we asked Stephen and Mary to take it into their home, where the behemoth would enhance their Victorian-influenced decor. In time, arrangements were made to transfer ownership, and there the piano remains to this day. We, in turn, bought a contemporary console piano, more in keeping with our tastes and our tendency to move.