When I was in elementary school, the school offered free piano lessons to interested students. I thought playing the piano would be cool, so I signed up.
We met once a week in a small room on the back wing of the school. There were seven spinets crammed into the limited space, and we sat two to a bench as one instructor roamed from instrument to instrument, instructing, correcting and encouraging us. Since I had no piano at home, I had no opportunity to practice except with a graphic reproduction of three octaves’ worth of keys printed on a piece of posterboard.
After a couple of semesters of lessons, it became clear to my parents that I was determined to continue playing. When they found a used piano at a price they could afford, they decided to buy it for me so I could get in some genuine practice.
The instrument in question was an old upright. It was scuffed and worn, out of tune and out of style, but it was still serviceable and I was glad to get it.
My father gathered several of his brothers-in-law, loaded them into the bed of his pickup truck and went to pick up the piano. They managed to wrestle it out of the seller’s house and down the steps, heaved it up an improvised ramp and into the bed of the pickup, and tethered it firmly into place. Then they all got back in the truck and drove home.
At our house the reverse process began: they untied the piano, struggled to get it back down the ramp without losing their hold on it, muscled it across the lawn and up the steps, and finally heaved it into the house.
My parents had decided beforehand that it should be placed in the den. The problem was that in order to achieve this, the piano had to be moved through a doorway at the head of a short hall, then shifted to clear another doorway at a right angle to the first. The men all measured the space with their eyes and agreed, with much manly posturing, that they could accomplish the mission. Some got on the leading end of the piano to guide, some pushed from the rear.
They managed to get the piano through the first doorway, then achieved the angling necessary to enter the second. The problem developed when the trailing end of the piano did not clear the first doorway before the leading end wedged in the second portal, with walls at both ends preventing any further shifting. The piano was firmly stuck, the hallway completely blocked and some of my uncles helplessly trapped in the den.
If only the piano could be shifted a couple of inches, they were all sure the problem would work itself out. The men pushed and pulled, shoved and swore, discussed and argued, but all to no avail. The piano never budged. Reluctant to admit defeat, the men rededicated themselves again and again to moving the piano ever so slightly, but finally they gave up and confessed they were beaten.
My mother got out the yellow pages and found a listing for a piano mover. She called the number and explained the situation, begging the man to come right away and do whatever he could to dislodge the instrument and liberate the trapped men.
The professional showed up within the hour, came into the house and scrutinized the men, the layout and the wedged piano. About a minute passed in silence as the dispirited men waited. Finally the mover walked up to one end of the piano, reached up to the top of the instrument and flipped up the lid, a lid that the other men never knew was set on hinges. With the two inches of the overhanging lid out of the way, there was just enough play to shift the piano the necessary bit and move it easily on into the den.
My mother paid the man his usual fee, and had the grace to wait for the mover to leave the house before she began to laugh at the abashed men.
I practiced my piano lessons on that instrument for years afterward, but I always got my practice time in before my father came home. Maybe it was my limited talents, maybe it was just bad memories; but for some reason, he just hated to hear the sound of that piano.