When my great aunt died, I inherited her Steinway
I am green with envy. I won't even resent you, since you DID build a special room for it and hopefully are getting it tuned occasionally. I have a deep dislike of people with show grand pianos that sit untuned and unplayed. Owners of white grand pianos should be thrown into the bowels of their pianos, the lid closed, and small children with hammers set loose on the keys.
Our first piano (I was very small) was an old upright that my mother painted green to match her dining room which is where she placed it.
An old green piano in the dining room-- not exactly the dream but good enough. I can still remember its arrival at our house. The first time I saw it was in our basement next to the giant furnace. It was battered and scarred. My Uncle George sat down and played it and taught me a few notes. I think I was about 4. I fell in love- not with Uncle George but the secrets I realized lay within those keys. I knew I had to learn them. The teacher in town said I was too young to start, but allowed me in her pre-music class where we banged triangles and woodblocks. It was NOT the piano, but I knew I was on my way.
When I was eight and showing some promise, my parents decided the green object needed to go, and we got a Baldwin Acrosonic that had been in a nightclub. It was actually a great instrument, despite some cigarette burns, and I hauled it around with me for years from apartment to apartment, school to school, jobs. I can remember moving into a second floor apartment at UVa and this giant black man carrying it on his back ALONE up the stairs because two men couldn't for some reason maneuver the turn in the stairs. My god, that was an impressive sight- this man with muscles bulging, sweating profusely, and my poor piano hanging over the edge tilting toward the parking lot below.
They don't make men like that anymore. This summer two men showed up to move my piano for the new carpet. They were supposed to remove the legs and carry the piano to the garage. They were wearing supportive belts and they stared at
it for a while and said, why don't you get those roller things and we can just roll it to the sunroom.
Wimpy girly men. |
