Question of the Month

[Marcel Carey]

At 10:17 97-04-26 -0500, you wrote:
>Susan,
>
>   Thanks. I imagine most of us enjoy hearing a true story about something
>like that. At least as long as it doesn't happen to us. :-)
>
>Avery
>
>>All right, Avery, just didn't know if anyone would be interested.
>
I might be able to beat that one. While tuning an upright piano at the
Orford Art Center one summer about 10 years ago (when pianos were still in
outside little cabins), I saw the mouse walking on the hammer heads. It was
just looking at me and probably wondering what the hell I was doing. Well it
didn't die of old age! :-) The funny thing is that after it died, I started
to inspect the keybed and found about 6 of it's kids in there. They were
more lucky. I just threw them out of the piano and the cabin. My two
daughters were with me at that time and they still talk about it. I saw a
lot of these situations. These little animals would start coming into pianos
usually in the middle of August just for nesting. They really liked the
hammer rest felt and the damper felts. Frotunately, The Art Center had a new
building built and now the pianos are better protected. The old cabins were
so damp on rainy days that we had to take out actions and put them in the
car's windshield under the sun to make them playable again in about 1/2 hre.

Marcel Carey, RPT