PIANO PROGRESS Our first family piano was ordered by mail from the maker. It was - and I have to guess at the spelling - made by a firm named Zellerbach & Mueller in the Pittsburgh or eastern Ohio area. My mother ordered it largely, I think, because she had practiced on one as a child. She equated the unit with anything made by Steinway and Baldwin, the keyboard headliners of that day. We loved it and used it all the way. It served our somewhat unusual needs very well.
It's arrival was a real day of celebration and, in particular, I remember because the piano was shipped by railway freight and arrived at our house on 2nd Street, in Central Radford, Va. by means of railway freight. It was unloaded from a freight car to a high-wheeled, horse drawn wagon. The piano was encased in a sturdy, thick boarded box to protect it from all hazards of rail transport. That box served our needs for a playhouse for many years.
The two large men shifted the box from the wagon bed to our front porch and used tools they had to opened the big box so they could place the piano in our living room. We found out why when the larger of the two draymen seated himself at the piano and dealt out a series of bar-room ballads interlaced with favorite hymns. He was the first of many people who played piano with joy and obvious gusto. His partner had to remind him that they had work to do at the freight office making more deliveries. He was he first of many, many people who enjoyed playing that particular piano.
Our entire family played that piano - some more - some less. My older brother Al took lessons with Medford at Radford College where we both played in a college orchestra for a time. His piano training served both of us well in our orchestra experiences that followed down through the years.
So many families used to center much of their Living around the family piano and ours certainly did more than its fair share We were forever having groups in and the piano was usually the center of things. I remember particularly one young man who was to become a concert piano person tag the state level. For a time, he used our house as one of his practice locations. Three hours in one location can drive neighbors to distraction, to say the least.
Other pianos I have known Number 2 - a small Wurlitzer spinet
Irma and I bought. Irma willed her violin to son David and the piano to son Andy. Since Andy Jr. and Terry already had a piano, we held on to it and when grand daughter Annette wanted one in her Washington, D.C. apartment it moved there as Andy Jrs. and Terry's gift.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-11-06 [c490wds]
c
