Smiles on the faces

So first, I make a call to Peter Spring, who when I saw him last, had about 50 pianos. When I called him a week before we came down, he told me he had more. (More? Holy Toledo!) Where is Peter keeping them all I am thinking? So I knew he might have one to spare. When I called him I asked him, “Hey Peter I have this school that needs a piano. Do you have one?” He said, “Sure Bill, when can you come over?” I told him I would get back to him. My next phone call was to Gordon, who has a pick up truck. “Gordon”, I said, “What are you up to?” See, the thing I was thinking was this teacher Jim Stevens could get a piano within 24 hrs. It would take some fancy footwork, but we all thought we could do it. Gordon told me he is up for the idea.

After a little back and forth, we decide that the best time to fit this in would be first thing in the morning. In the morning, Jim Stevens and his class will have a new piano.

For now, we have to get going to a local church that has an open mike style gathering where folks play music, and it was getting close to 7P.M. when they start it. So we get going in that direction. Al has not been back for a little while, so he is looking forward to it. For Elaine, this will be her first time.

The way it works is everyone plays a tune and it goes around a circle. The night goes on till about 10p.m. We see some folks we have seen before, and it’s fun playing and hearing Walter tell his Boudreau jokes, and the night gets away from us so very fast like a weasel on the run. We pile back into the van and get back to the camp site to get some sleep. We have to make an early start in the morning.

The next morning we get to Peter Spring’s place about 9AM to meet Gordon who has the pickup.

It rained during the night and still is raining a bit, so we have to figure out how we are going to keep the piano dry. We meet Peter at the door and he has this big grin on his face. I am thinking this is too much fun…work, yes… but fun, too. When we look at the trailer that Peter has, we ask him, “Peter, could we possibly use your trailer?” As always Peter says, “Yeah, let’s keep that piano dry”. So we hook up the trailer to Gordon’s pickup truck. Now, Peter has a certain way he moves these things. So we let him direct the loading. After all, this is his specialty.

Once we have everything secured to his satisfaction, we say our thanks and see-you-laters and head ‘em up and move ‘em out. Salmen High School here we come! After getting back to Slidell, we pull into the school parking lot with our little entourage, ready to make like piano movers. Gordon has done a lot of this sort of thing too, so we try to follow his directions the best we can. (Pianos are a bit larger than we guitar players are used to dealing with.) Luckily, we make it to Mr. Stevens’ classroom without tipping anything over or losing any parts. The smiles on the faces of teacher and students say it all.