feathered onlookers

[Diane Hofstetter]

Paul, I listened to my father's tuning stories for years, and after 30 years in this business myself, I must say your story is THE FUNNIEST I have ever heard!   I laughed and laughed, and have been reading it to everyone who will listen.

I would just die myself if I hurt a customer's pet and can imagine the horror you must have felt, looking at that parrot spread out on the floor.  And to blurt out "Not anymore"  PRICELESS!

Diane 



feathered onlookers
Dempsey Jr., Paul E dempsey at marshall.edu 

I have serviced Betty Ann's lovely Steinway L for many years. Just as you enter her home you see a rather large aviary with several parrots, cockatoos, cockatiels....you get the picture.

Every time I had been there the birds were in the enclosure. They occasionally will screech, whistle, etc. the usual bird talk, but never much of a bother.  Until.....

As fate would have it, one day I came to tune and Betty Ann greeted me at the door and then disappeared to the other end of the house.
I noticed that the aviary was open and vacant.
I thought little about that and began work.

The great room where the piano is located has high vaulted ceilings, ledges, exposed beams, a highly polished parquet floor.

I began tuning, thankful that Betty Ann was in the other end of the house (she's a talker ;-).

I was about half way through the tuning when suddenly, from behind me; there was the sound of a screeching B-52 coming straight at my head. Startled, I did a duck and cover- both hands and arms flying up to cover my head. My tuning hammer was still clutched tightly in my hand and SMACK!!!

One of the birds had zoomed down from the rafters making this God awful sound, arriving at my head the same time as the tuning hammer in my hand. POW- there the bird went.. spiraling across the polished floor a good 10-15 feet and then just laid there ON IT'S BACK!

I thought " O MY GOD, I KILLED BETTY ANN'S BIRD".

About then Betty Ann sings out from the other end of the house " Paul, is the bird bothering you?"

I blurted back " Not any more"

Fortunately, the bird flopped back to its feet, squawking for all it's worth and flew back up to its perch in the ceiling.

It never came back down and it never shut its beak the entire rest of my visit.






Paul E. Dempsey, RPT
Piano Technician Sr.
Marshall University
Huntington, WV
304-696-5418
304-617-1149



Diane Hofstetter