Besides, of all the pages on FB that belong to people who actually have something to steal, why would a criminal be monitoring mine? What are they going to take? A few TV's, a 10 year old DVR, my whiny neurotic cats? They would bring the cats back within an hour. Just as soon as Jingle began to demand that the crook follow him to the litter box and watch him poop, the criminal would be bringing both of them back and tossing them in through the front door. Poor Shiner would just be guilty by association. He'd get tossed back in the house just in case he had begun to develop a demanding nature from watching Jingle.
I'd leave the key under the mat if the criminal would come and get my piano. I think insurance would probably give me more for it than anyone looking to buy a 100 year old player piano that needs work to actually start playing rolls again. Don't get me wrong, manually, it plays just fine. I mean assuming you know how to play it. But I am a single woman with no children who never learned to play the piano and I own one. When Shiner chases Jingle he sometimes jumps on the keys and makes better music on it than I could.
It's a beautiful old piano. I love it and wish I had a good place to keep it. But sitting in my cramped dining room and going unplayed for years seems silly. My family got it when I was in high school. One weekend after we moved to Bay City, Mom and Dad drove to Lufkin and bought it. When it arrived at the house, it was in horrible shape. But my Dad, who I am pretty sure has never found anything he couldn't fix, had apparently decided he needed a new challenge.
He began buy setting up his camera on a tripod with slide film in it. For the millions of children who I am sure are reading this, (insert eye roll here) there was a time when you had to decide before you were ready to take your photos exactly what format you wanted to view them in. Once that decision was made you had to purchase the film in a roll of 12, 24, 36 or 72 exposures and then very carefully take the photos. After this process was complete you had to either send them off or take them to the drug store and wait days for them to be developed before you could get them back and see which ones, if any, had turned out.
So, he loaded the camera up with the first of many rolls of 36 exposure Kodachrome film and started snapping away. First he took pictures of the piano fully in tact and then he took pictures of it from several angles as he took each piece off so that when he was ready to start putting it back together he would have a record of what went where. I thought this approach was ingenuous! By the time he was finish photographically recording the removal of each piece of the piano, the living room was covered in piano parts. I don't remember exactly how long the restoration took. But I think it was a few months. In case you don't know, a player piano is filled with bellows of several different sizes, there is a small bellow for each key. Additionally, there are larger bellows that I believe feed those smaller ones with air. There are hoses that the air passes through to get to those bellows. Each of the bellows and hoses must be airtight in order for the player mechanism to work.
Then when a person begins pumping the foot control (I would equate this process with someone out of shape, like myself, racing against Lance Armstrong up the highest point in the Pyrenees Mountains on an inadequate Schwinn while Lance is on his multi-thousand dollar hand made racing Trek.) the larger bellow fills with air and the air is released into the smaller bellows as the piano roll scrolls by and the holes in the paper pass over the appropriate spots. For something that was built at the turn of the last century, it is kind of impressive.
After dad repaired and replaced all of the bellows and hoses he began putting it back together. This time, the camera on the tripod had been removed from the living room and replaced by a slide projector and a movie screen. As he would get to each piece, he went to the appropriate slide and figured out how to put it back where it went. When he finished we had the most amazing thing... a working player piano.
At last, my musically inept family was finally able to gather around the piano and all sing out of key as one of us pumped those peddles for all we were worth and played the piano. It was magic! Our piano rolls that we had all given input in purchasing consisted of classic songs such as "By the Light of the Silvery Moon", "Blue Skies", "The Entertainer", "Paper Moon" and many more. But the one that we all loved the most was "Beer Barrel Polka". Go figure! With all of us singing at the top of our lungs, I'm certain that the neighbors were wondering exactly why a cat was being tortured in our living room as someone played the piano beautifully. But we didn't care how bad we were.
Over the years, the bellows and hoses have developed new air leaks which means that the player mechanism no longer works properly. When my parents lived in Wildwood, they decided to get rid of the piano since it was taking up space and Dad didn't want to fix it again to make the player part of it work properly once again. They even moved it to the garage in preparation of selling it. But I couldn't let it go. I loved that piano that my Dad had restored for us!
So, I found a new apartment on a ground floor that the piano could be moved in to easily, well as easily as an enormous antique piano can be moved. Dad, Uncle Tommy and I think one or both of my brothers brought it up to Richardson on a flat trailer and placed it in my living room and took some of my furniture back with them since the piano and furniture could not all fit. Since then, my one requirement no matter where I have lived has been that the living room must be on a ground floor to accommodate the piano. When I originally moved into my condo, it was in the living room against the biggest wall. But then I got a flat screen TV and wanted to mount it on the wall, so I hired movers to move the piano from the living room to the dining room where it still sits. In order to sit on the piano bench now, you must first move the dining room table away from it which isn't a huge task since my dining room table is minuscule as a result of having such a small space to put it in due to my enormous piano that takes up all the room.
For years, the piano has dictated the placement of all of my furniture and I have never learned to play a note on it. For a long time I thought I would take piano lessons. But that never happened. Last year, I finally admitted that perhaps my parents were right when they had decided to sell it years ago. For a while I thought my brother, Robbie, was going to take it. Last month, I thought that my parents preacher might buy it. He was interested in owning one. But apparently, they have all decided against it. So, now Mom is telling me I should put it on Ebay or Craigslist. I know that I should. But after all of this time, I still hesitate. I guess when it comes to the piano, I am like one of those hoarders who believes that you have to hold on to the object in order to retain the memories. While I know intellectually, that the memories will always be there, taking that first step of posting the pictures on line is still difficult. Maybe when I get back from San Francisco I'll get an appraisal and then get it posted.
But for now, I'll just go pack for my trip as I sing "Beer Barrel Polka" at the top of my lungs and slightly out of tune.
Beer Barrel Polka
There's a garden, what a garden
Only happy faces bloom there
And there's never any room there
For a worry or a gloom there
Oh there's music and there's dancing
And a lot of sweet romancing
When they play the polka
They all get in the swing
Every time they hear that oom-pa-pa
Everybody feels so tra-la-la
They want to throw their cares away
They all go lah-de-ah-de-ay
Then they hear a rumble on the floor, the floor
It's a big surprise they're waiting for
And all the couples form a ring
For miles around you'll hear them sing...
Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we've got the blues on the run
Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer
Now's the time to roll the barrel, for the gang's all here
Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
Then they hear a rumble on the floor-or-or-or
It's a big surprise they're waiting for
And all the couples they form a ring
For miles around you'll hear them sing
Zing do da do ding do da-do-do-day
Only happy faces bloom there
And there's never any room there
For a worry or a gloom there
Oh there's music and there's dancing
And a lot of sweet romancing
When they play the polka
They all get in the swing
Every time they hear that oom-pa-pa
Everybody feels so tra-la-la
They want to throw their cares away
They all go lah-de-ah-de-ay
Then they hear a rumble on the floor, the floor
It's a big surprise they're waiting for
And all the couples form a ring
For miles around you'll hear them sing...
Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we've got the blues on the run
Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer
Now's the time to roll the barrel, for the gang's all here
Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
Then they hear a rumble on the floor-or-or-or
It's a big surprise they're waiting for
And all the couples they form a ring
For miles around you'll hear them sing
Zing do da do ding do da-do-do-day
----- instrumental break -----
Roll it out, roll it out, roll out the barrel
Dump-dump-da da-da da-dat en da-da-da-da-da
Sing a song of good cheer
'Cause the whole gang is here
Roll it out, roll it out
Let's do the beer barrel polka
-Jaromir Vejvoda, 1927
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