<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Ha Ha! Thanks! </span></div><div><span> For 15 years I was "head tech" at a firm in Atlanta that specialized in art-case reproducing grands from the 20's, often for celebrity clients. (John McEnroe, Kenny Rogers, lawyers for "Coke", Japanese businessmen flying in with suitcases full of cash, etc..... reasonably fun gig. In our "heyday", we didn't even have a sign on our remote showroom with its darkly tinted windows . ( It was so "exclusive". ) But then about the same time I was rammed at a traffic light (in 2001) by a personal injury lawyer in front of a chiropractors' office ( you may laugh -- I did, betweeen spates of agony over the next year recovering!) the owner became ill, and everything was shut down. I never recovered business-wise,
because in all those years working for a firm 50 miles away, I never developed a client base </span></div><div><span>"at home", with the more cultured, "high end" customers one needs to be successful (materially and spiritually) in this trade. ( And they were almost all sucked up, in the meantime, by a very nice fellow who does excellent work, from his great, big, well-equipped restoration shop in North Atlanta.) </span></div><div><span> There is some sort of "lesson" here. (That I don't have time to ruminate on, currently.) But I'm doing O.K., have supportive friends (one with a house that needs tons of work) and my memoir has been requested by some Hollywood "Big Shots". ( A tiny bit of it was already already read on NPR and included in a New York Times best selling compendium of NPR's "National Story Project". If you search for "The Unicycle" on NPR's site, it might still be
there.)</span></div><div><span> So I'm happy. My brother said (when I was 17 and getting into this trade) "Don't call yourself a piano tuner!" meaning: the services we provide our fellow humans are things that we DO, not, ultimately, WHO we are!!! ( And my brother has 45 patents in optical physics, and is a top researcher at a very high tech firm---so he's due plenty of accolades---if he wanted them.) The advice I can give others after suffering these crises is simply to NOT let a fanatic devotion to your "business" wreck your personal relationships, and to try to always see yourself as an evolving being with a large enough variety of interests that if one aspect of your life goes "belly up", you can "roll with it" and soon-enough ( after a natural period of "depression", if needed) come out smiling --- with friends to love all around you, and a nice, </span><span>clean, place to
sleep.</span></div><div></div><div>Peace, </div><div>Euphonious Thumpe<br></div> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <div style="margin: 5px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); height: 0px; line-height: 0; font-size: 0px;" class="hr" contentEditable="false" readonly="true"></div> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Susan Kline <skline@peak.org><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> pianotech@ptg.org <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday, May 14, 2012 10:45 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [pianotech] Why I asked Dale to please not share photos of the felt cutter with everyone.......<br> </font> </div> <br>
Euphonious, is there some reason you are staying there?<br><br>Condolences on what sounds like the worst job from hell I've ever heard of. Makes my visit to the guy newly out of jail, whose beady-eyed mother was sitting on the porch with a shotgun, seem like an ice cream social.<br><br>Susan Kline<br><br>On 5/13/2012 6:59 PM, Euphonious Thumpe wrote:<br>> *The last customer I had here ( before deciding to only fix pianos as a hobby) presented me with a reeking house full of literal garbage waist-high in some rooms, a piano full of mouse poops, and grinning tales of tying people to bumpers and dragging them down gravel roads, tying them to chairs and pulling out their toenails, and etc.. Naturally, I wanted to grab my tools and split; but knew that would create in him suspicions that I was going to the police ( and then I'd be his next victim---he knows where my shop is!) so, for personal safety, stood there and listened to these disgusting stories
while grinning, as if in approval! The spiritual damage to me, although temporary, was severe: I shook for days on account of it. So I'm no longer officially "in business" here as a piano technician, and am supremely grateful for a friend with a house that needs much fixing up!<br><br><br><br><br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>