FIRE!

[J Patrick Draine]

Alan,I agree with your reordering of "steps to follow", while applauding
Martin's willingness to provide us with his experience and his "beta plan."
I tend to have a default "mind my own business" mindset, in large part to
stay focused on the tasks which I have at hand, and out of respect for the
privacy of the household into which I have been temporarily summoned.
Sometimes this may involve ignoring unpleasant odors -- usually associated
with cats, dogs, or tobacco. On occasion it may involve the household's
speed with which they dispose of garbage, or ethnic differences between my
Irish-American taste & smell standard (bland is safe, fresh air the default
odor) and the client's lack of stovetop  vent fans as they boil fatty bones
for hours, or fry extremely spicy dishes, etc.
So a few years ago I arrived for an early evening tuning, and was faced with
a very flat, neglected Baldwin Hamilton, and dove into triage lost motion
adjustment, pitch raise & fine tuning etc. mode. Meanwhile the customer had
started cooking supper (involving in part a steamy, briskly boiling pot of
water). And then wandered off to decompress from her workday mode and the
unpleasant "ping ping boing" noise of the piano technician at work.
Soooo it went as I thought to myself "hmm seems like she's cooking that
stuff rather crisp" but then refocusing on that additional pass to get the
tuning as stable as possible!
Eventually it was obvious that it was SMOKE coming from the kitchen, not
steam, and after a lot of calling out "HELLO! HELLO??" she emerged, pulled
the smokin' pot off the stove, got the fans on high and windows open, etc. I
finished the tuning breathing rather acrid air, and feeling really stupid
for not getting her attention 20 minutes earlier.
Patrick Draine


On Feb 16, 2008 11:43 PM, Alan Barnard <pianotuner at embarqmail.com> wrote:

> I didn't get the original post (?) so I'm responding to this one. I
> confess that I don't understand your "steps to follow".
>
> Priorities:
>
> #1 ... the kids upstairs
> #2 ... the lady and her son
> #3 ... me
> #4 ... 911
>
> As to my tools, my car, and their piano, the house and everything
> inanimate within it?  T'hell with them!
>
> The canary? Sadly, to heaven with it.
>
> Alan Barnard
> Salem, MO
>
> ----- Original message ----------------------------------------
> From: "Martin Wisenbaker" <mbjwisenbaker at juno.com>
> To: pianotech at ptg.org
> Received: 2/16/2008 9:59:28 PM
> Subject: Re: FIRE!
>
>
> >List:
>
> >A few years ago, when my wife was still alive, I was tuning a Charles
> >Walter studio at a house in a suburban subdivision west of Houston, Texas
> >when a fire broke out. Some time before this I had the thought of what
> >would I do in case this should happen. I made a conscious decision at
> >that time that I would gather all my tools and things, close the piano
> >and exit the premises as quickly as possible and then consider ways to
> >help if I could. I had the opportunity to do just that on that day in
> >October of that year in the late 1990's. Seated at the piano, I was
> >facing east against the front wall of the house in the living room. The
> >kitchen was on my left. The west wall and part of the north wall of the
> >kitchen  was glass. This gave me a full view of the detached garage and
> >part of the driveway. About half way through the tuning I looked around
> >to my left at the garage and the driveway. All looked serene and normal.
> >There were two vehicles in the garage, an Audi and a Suburban. Some
> >minutes later, the lady of the house rushed down the stairs, passed by me
> >hurriedly exclaiming, "What is going on out there?" I looked to my left
> >again as she passed by and beheld a frightful scene. The whole front of
> >the detached garage was on fire and the big orange flames were beginning
> >to leap onto the roof of the house. Remembering my plan of action for
> >such an occasion, I jumped up, ripped my muting strips out of the piano,
> >threw all my tools in my bag, put the front board back on the piano and
> >closed the fallboard with the thought that soon water from firemen's
> >hoses could soon be cascading in. I ran out to my car which I had parked
> >directly in front of the house, put my bag in it and moved the car down
> >the street about a block or so. I came back to see if I could help in
> >some way. By this time all the neighbors were outside their houses all
> >around looking on. It was obvious that someone had called the fire
> >department by this time. The lady of the house was crying by now, but
> >still inside the house. Her oldest son, around 16, seemed too numbed to
> >say any thing to help his mother. Her younger teen aged son, about 13 or
> >14, had the presence of mind to tell his mother, "That is why we have
> >insurance". The decision was made to all exit the house. There were still
> >younger children upstairs. They all got out. I asked the lady where her
> >husband was. She told me he was on a business trip on the east coast. She
> >was still crying and almost hysterical. I knew her husband had a right to
> >learn that his house was on fire. I told the lady to, "Call your
> >husband". She said his phone number was on the refrigerator. No one
> >wanted to go back in to retrieve the number from the refrigerator which
> >was only a few feet from the origin of the fire. But me telling her to
> >call her husband caused her to begin to get her wits together. She did
> >call someone at the Houston office of his company who then in turn called
> >to the meeting where he was. Two secretaries searched until they found
> >him. He dismissed himself from the meeting and took the next plane back
> >to Houston. Meanwhile I went across the street and borrowed a neighbor's
> >phone and called my wife and was giving her a play by play account of
> >what was happening when the attic exploded. Debris fell down on the front
> >sidewalk  in front of the front door. I did have a thought that I could
> >have moved the piano out of the house and across the street into a
> >neighbor's garage. But when the debris fell right in front of the front
> >door I was glad I had not tried to do that. The younger children were
> >crying because their parakeet was still upstairs. It was later rescued by
> >a fireman. When the first fire truck arrived, they parked it right where
> >I had been parked. I surely was glad I had moved my car in time.
>
> >The fire started in the Audi. It spread over to the Suburban which had a
> >full tank of gasoline. She had just filled it up. The detached garage and
> >all its contents were a total loss. The house was, for the most part,
> >saved, except for the roof. It all burned off. The family was all saved
> >intact. The house was restored, a new garage was built and they bought
> >another Charles Walter piano which I tuned a number of times before he
> >was transferred to Oklahoma. The insurance company thought that the heat
> >could have damaged the first piano so they paid for another one. The lady
> >sent me a nice letter of appreciation of my services and also to tell me
> >that they were moving to Oklahoma.
>
>
> >--
> >Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
> >Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> >Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.2/1224 - Release Date:
> 1/14/2008 5:39
> >PM
>
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