The Upright arrives

Went and got the new piano on Monday morning. Ethan and Breanne and I left Gardiner around 9:30 and pulled into David and Julie Roberts's driveway around quarter to 11. We introduced ourselves and went inside to look at the piano and figure out the best way to move it. David and his oldest son soon arrived in cub scout uniforms, scarfs around their necks, and we worked on rolling the beast from the living room to the kitchen to the porch to the truck. David had to take the screen door off and it was a bit heavy getting it on to the wood ramp my dad made but eventually we had it in the truck bed. We secured it with some nylon rope and said thanks and were off. Breanne felt bad about taking the piano, you could tell the wife didn't want to get rid of it, but we experienced the same thing years ago when we had to get rid of our old piano I'd purchased from the Frink family in high school. Sometimes there's just no room for stuff.

We drove slowly and carefully from Standish through Gorham and eventually pulled onto the lawn in Old Orchard. Jesse met us at the house and helped us get the piano through the door on the front of the house that's rarely used. It was a bit of a task- we stripped some paint off the door and roughed up one of the back corners of the upright but at least we got it inside.

We treated Ethan and Jesse to italians at Shelley's and watched the Memorial Day parade from the sidewalk while we ate. Bagpipers, Shriners on mopeds, baton twirlers, antique cars, military men, a few weirdos with push lawnmowers.

It's nice to have a real piano again. It's an upright Packard, though I don't know the year yet. It's a bit ugly at the moment- looks like the Roberts family took an introductory art course in Impressionism and tried to get fancy with the paint job. The detailing on the face of it and the carvings on the legs, like the capital of a column, are a nice flourish. We're going to strip off the paint and redo it, probably something darker and simpler. We'll have to have it looked at: the D in the highest register doesn't pop back up when you hit it and a C-sharp is a bit flat.