The "FREE" Piano

When we moved to our current house in January, my mom and dad came out to help.  During their visit, my mom's best friend Judy (they met when they were 8 or something), who lives at Lake Tahoe came down to hang out with my mom for a bit.  Judy was in the process of cleaning out a storage unit that they had for at least a decade.  The storage unit was only about a mile from my house.  Her storage was full of sentimental things but they just couldn't possibly fit them into their condo and it was crazy to keep paying to store it all.  Judy said the one thing that made her so sad was parting with her piano.  She mentioned in passing that we could have it but since we were in the middle of the move, Keith gave a pretty firm NO to that idea.

Later in the week, I received an email from Judy.  Judy loved that piano.  Her mom had gotten it when she was only 8 years old (1920's) and played it her entire life.  Her mom earned a degree in piano performance and Judy grew up listening to the beautiful sounds of that instrument.  But Judy didn't even play the piano and simply didn't have room for it anymore.  She had arranged for the Salvation Army to come pick up the last of the things in storage and she just hated to see the piano be donated.  She asked again if I wanted it (I could have it for FREE!) and sent me this picture:

Keith's fondness for pianos is about the same as he feels for dogs.  In other words, not only no......

The days passed and on the morning of the Salvation Army pickup, I had a moment of clarity.  I wanted that piano.  I mean, it was FREE after all.  And it had this great history (my mom's best friend's mom.  That's practically a blood relation!).  As Keith was leaving for work that morning I admitted my piano lust.  He looked at me like I was crazy and said good-bye.

I frantically searched the phone book for a piano mover.  I only had about 4 hours to beat the Salvation Army to the punch.  A little while later, my dear husband called and gave me a phone number.  He groaned knowing that he was helping me in my awful scheme, but one of his nurses knew a guy....

That guy happened to be available and he met me at the storage unit an hour later.  He blew off twelve years of dust and played a few notes.  He checked out the insides and was pleasantly surprised that it was in good condition.  Only a few adjustments and some tuning and it would be a great piano.  He loaded the piano into his truck and took it off to his shop to work out its kinks before delivering it to my house.

I was so excited!  Keith rolled his eyes.  I should probably mention here that I don't really play the piano.....

A few days later, my piano arrived.  The mover fixed a couple minor things and tuned it about 8 times before it was good to go.

And SEVEN HUNDRED dollars later, I had my "FREE" piano!

Of course, I am committed to learning to really play my FREE piano.  I took lessons when I was little and have taught myself some as well but now that I had my FREE piano, I needed to step it up a notch.

My piano mover gave me the name of a piano teacher in my neighborhood and I called her right away. We arranged for a lesson time and I skipped off to my first lesson.  I found out that not only does she play awesome piano....she's a JAZZ pianist!  My dream!  She rocked a few Louis Armstrong tunes for me and I floated home afterwards, feeling my jazz piano dreams almost within reach.

A week later, I showed up for my next lesson.  As I sat down at my teacher's gorgeous grand piano, she broke the news.  She had been diagnosed with cancer and would have to stop teaching piano lessons while she went out of town for treatment.

I was so sad for her.

And my piano playing dreams crashed down again.  But hey, I had scored a "FREE" piano so maybe just being in the same room with it will give me some awesome piano vibes.

UPDATE:  It took me so long to publish this post that now my teacher is back!  She's cancer free and teaching again!  I've had one lesson with her since her return.  Still not cranking out an improv version of "The A Train" yet but I sense it in my future.....