OT A tuner's last day ...

[Elwood Doss]

Great, Alan, I live about 10 miles south of Fulton and about 5 miles
west of Dresden!  I served for two years as Minister of Music at First
Baptist Church, Fulton, KY just prior to retiring from the full-time
Music Ministry to take a staff position in the Department of Music at
the University of Tennessee at Martin.  I have heard a number of stories
arising from the railroad industry in Fulton, but that one takes the
cake!  Fulton was the location where, before refrigerated cars, all the
railroad cars carrying bananas as well as other fruits and vegetables,
were iced down for their trip further north.  It is still important to
the railroad industry but not to the extent that it was in the early to
mid-1900s.  

 

Speaking of piano tuners shooting straight, I was not on campus this
afternoon, but the university was on lockdown for about an hour and a
half due to a local bank robbery and the get-away car was located on one
of the university parking lots.  I thought later that the faculty and
staff should pack some heat....  Interesting that you would post your
comments this evening!  Have a great weekend.  It's snowing here...3 to
4 inches...the most this winter...and probably the last!

Joy!

Elwood

 

Elwood Doss, Jr., M.M.E., RPT

Piano Technician/Technical Director

Department of Music

145 Fine Arts Building

The University of Tennessee at Martin

Martin, TN  38238

731/881-1852

FAX: 731/881-7415

HOME: 731/587-5700

________________________________

From: Alan Barnard [mailto:pianotuner at embarqmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 5:18 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: OT A tuner's last day ...

 

>From Dresden (Tennessee) Enterprise Newspaper 

 

June 30, 1905

 

We are informed that the worst tragedy ever committed in Fulton was
perpetrated there last Saturday evening at about eight o'clock. The
circumstances are about these: Messrs. SPINK and WALTERS,
brothers-in-law, the former a freight train conductor, the latter a
piano tuner, were living in the same house. It seems best of feelings
had not prevailed for a year or more. On Mr. WALTERS' return from
Paducah, Saturday evening, he found a horse had been turned into the
yard to graze, had gotten into the garden and mutilated it. WALTERS
became enraged and opened fire on SPINK, who was sitting on the side of
the bed holding a two weeks old babe that was then dying. SPINK, who was
mortally wounded, laid the baby down and crawled to his pistol and while
WALTERS continued shooting him, got his pistol and shot WALTERS through
the heart, killing him almost instantly. SPINK died about midnight, and
the baby died also during the night. So on Sunday, the husband, brother
and child of Mrs. SPINKS were corpses in the same building.

Moral: Piano tuners should always be straight shooters; you might want
to practice ...

 

Alan Barnard
Salem, MO

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