This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Re: The Square. Aw, Joe. The customer only pretended to be happy. Truth = is, you broke her heart: She was hoping to make a desk out of it. Who = shot it, anyway? Must have been a tech. Didn't know if it would be too "OT" (new term I learned here) and bore = people. But since you described your day, here was my very memorable = yesterday: 8 hours in a nursing home doing major work on a Chickering older than = most of their residents (1910). Piano can't be moved to any place more = private than right where it is. So ... Gentleman in wheelchair kept rolling past very, veeeery slowly, saying = "Come on, come on. Can't get goin'. Come on, come on. Can't get goin'." = Over and over again. Woman kept alternating between crying and SCREAMING the filthiest = obscenities you can imagine, telling everyone in sight where to go and = what to do when they get there (things not anatomically possible, BTW). = Over and over again. Lady in wheelchair kept rolling past asking everyone for spare change. = Over and over again. Another lady in wheelchair rolled up as I was bringing some new bass = strings up to the neighborhood of pitch (Mister Rogers?). She said: = "Play Deep Purple." "The piano isn't ready to play," says I, "I'm here = to fix it and tune it." "Okay," she says, "then play Stardust." "I = can't." says I. "Okay," she said, "I'll sing it for you." And she did. = Over and over again. Man in the room right next to the piano was watching marathon westerns. = Horses galloping, guns blazing. Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Gunsmoke, = some baaad movies, and The Lone Ranger. He's pretty deaf, the TV turned = up to Stun. (How come Tonto can't say: "He went to town" but CAN say: "Him go town, = back Wednesday." LOL) Man in the gunfight room had a small, cheap guitar. He got it out every = half hour and played for about 10 minutes (TV still going). Sounded = terrible. Finally offered to tune it for him with my "professional = tuner." Being a pianer tuna and a concert guitarist, I figured I could = really improve his instrument. It was waaaaaaaaay off. Tuned it, he said = thanks and went back to his room. Started playing and it sounded exactly = as before. Peeked in at him and saw that he was just making up random = "chords." Over and over again. Their handyman had done a decent job refinishing the piano. I sold them = a stencil and lent him a burnisher. He put it on, very nicely. I told = him to put a coat of the urethane he'd used over the stencil. He did. = Right there, right then. The fumes finally drove me out. These are just a few of the highlights. The whole experience was sad, = funny, and aggravating at the same time. Such mixed emotions are very = tiring. I get to go back this week to adjust my new dampers, repair the soft = pedal assembly (unique design, very Chickering), raise the pitch about = 150 cents on some pretty rusty strings and tune the thing (A435, thank = you very much) Pray for me. Over and over again. Alan R.Barnard Salem, MO P.S. To demonstrate the "ruralness" of this area: This nursing home is = an hour from my town. Most of that time you are driving through oak and = pine forests. You pass through two towns with pop. < 200 and see very = few mailboxes, let alone houses. There is exactly one place to buy gas = and get a soda 'twixt here and there. It closes when it gets dark. My = tunemobile has 214,000 miles on 'er. Keep praying, brothers and sisters, = I sure do when I'm on that road at 9 PM! ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/10/57/6f/17/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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