Couldn't use a washboard because we had no bathtub! My Dad had us living (hiding out) in Amish country far away from city folks, so we wouldn't get polio, like he did. Since there were no other children to play with, I would pick up baby toads and put them in my jeans pockets. When I saw the same pants going thru the "wringer" I shreiked! My mother almost lost it several times during these events - that's what makes them so memorable! Sometime during my kindergarten year (a place where we learned to build tree houses, use hammers, saws, screwdrivers and learned phonics)the Salk polio vaccine (shot) became available. I was one of the first kids in Ohio to get it! We moved to civilization the day before I started first grade. Although polio has been eradicated from this country since the 1960's, its effect is still being felt today. Apparently those folks who got it in the 40's and 50' got it again 30 years later; albeit a milder case but the side effects are cumulative. My Dad, a varsity swimmer, got it as a teenager. Thanks to an Australian bush nurse, my father learned to walk again. There is an old black-and-white movie about Sister Kinney, a nurse in the Outback during the 1940's. She was so isolated from medical advice that she was on her own to treat her patients coming down with this strange crippling disease. She treated the symptoms using hot compresses and physical therapy (such as she herself devised) and was extremely successful in preventing death and crippling effects suffered by most polio patients at the time. She tried to bring her findings to the medical establishment, but since she "was only a nurse", the doctors would not listen to her. She established a clinic in Australia for "hopeless" polio cases, and many, many people walked out of there! She came to the US and addressed the American Medical Association during the height of the polio epidemic of the 1940's. She was booed from the room because she "was only a nurse" and they wouldn't even listen to her. Many thousands of Americans died in iron lungs or wound up slapped into braces and crippled for life because these old guys were so closed minded. But not my Dad! Attending that lecture to the AMA was a young woman doctor, who asked Sister Kinney to elaborate on her treatments. This doctor,Jesse Stewart, incorporated these into her practice. My Dad got his friends to take him to this doctor, and after many years of "exercises" regained his ability to walk normally. Again, a piano makes its way into this story! A week after my mother graduated from high school, she met my father, who was 19 years old at the time and learning to walk with a cane. He was visiting a family in the neighborhood and her younger sister brought him home to meet her. She was upstairs brushing her hair when she heard him playing her piano, and I think she fell in love with him sight unseen! Because he lived out of state, dating was expensive and painful as those long Greyhound bus rides took their toll on his legs they decided to get married. My folks celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary this year. My father is 72 years old now, and plays the piano twice a week for nursing home bound folks, along with a friend who plays an old Hammond Chord Organ. Their duets are the most popular entertainment in town! I look forward to my parents visiting me and my new Disklavier at Thanksgiving, and hope to record for posterity a living memory of one of the most wonderful attributes of my father! Carol Beigel forever her father's daughter! >From: "Carl W. Meyer" <cmpiano@earthlink.net> >Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org >To: pianotech@ptg.org >Subject: Re: business cards >Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 8:16:14 -0700 > >Carol! Never used a washboard, Huh? And did you use a solar dryer? >(clothes line) Maybe you're not THAT old. It would be interesting if >everyone signed their name along with their age. > >Carl Meyer (pushing 70 from the wrong direction) > > > > [Original Message] > > From: Clyde Hollinger <cedel@supernet.com> > > To: <pianotech@ptg.org> > > Date: 9/13/00 7:36:02 PM > > Subject: Re: business cards > > > > One of those pieces of equipment showed twelve strobe wheels all at >once, >one > > for each half-step. I was thinking that was the Conn Strobotuner, but >I'm > > probably wrong. Anyone know the name of the thing I'm referring to? > > > > Clyde > > > > Carol Beigel wrote: > > > > > I learned to tune with one of those gadgets! It was a small, squarish >brown > > > box. The next generation of these gadgets was a taller model called >the > > > Conn STrobotuner that was rectangular in shape, but had one big >circular > > > display. I think the little red dots went round a 3 inch circle. >Then > > > after that I switched to the newfangled Sight O Tuner, then the >Accutuner, > > > then Cyber Tuner! Yeah, I guess I've always used a machine to tune, >but > > > then again I 've always used a machine to do my laundry - starting >with >a > > > ringer washing machine! > > > > > > Carol Beigel > > > > > > >From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com> > > > >Reply-To: pianotech@ptg.org > > > >To: pianotech@ptg.org > > > >Subject: business cards > > > >Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 17:33:03 -0500 > > > > > > > >I ran into a couple of interesting business cards this past week. > > > > > > > > > > > >PIANO TUNING > > > > > > > >With the Electronic > > > >STROBOCONN > > > > > > > >TUNES EVERY NOTE PERFECT > > > >ALL WORK GUARANTEED > > > > > > > >This is followed by the name of the music company he apparently >worked >for, > > > >and his name, address, etc. The tuning date was June-6-58. I had no >idea > > > >whatsoever that there was such a thing as a STROBOCONN when I was >ten. ><G> > > > > > > > >Ron N > > > > > > >_________________________________________________________________________ > > > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at >http://www.hotmail.com. > > > > > > Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at > > > http://profiles.msn.com. > > > > > > > >--- Carl W. Meyer, Santa Clara, Ca. >--- cmpiano@earthlink.net > > > _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
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