<HTML>It must have been a reall= y sweet piano long ago, but now the 1890 S and S "A" sits forlornly at the P= alo Alto Hills Country Club, looking out at the golf course from its spot in= the west-facing-heat-collecting pictrue windows.  Only called upon to = perform very occasionally, the soundboard is cracked in many places, dotted = with cigarette ashes flicked into it when they piano was placed by the pool = for an outdoor function, and wax from celebratory candles;  the tuning = pins and coils have been coated with god-knows-how-many martinis, and many o= f the strings are adorned with a fine layer of rust. Put into this purgatory by a private donor long ago, if this piano were = anything other than a Steinway, it would be ready for the glue heap.  O= ne would think that in a country club where memberships cost well over 100K$= , someone would recognize the potential value of something like this and pon= y up the money to have it re*******ed.  I have recommended this many ti= mes.  End of Rant. PAHCC modus operandi:  the night before an important performance(an= d sometimes the day of), the catering manager calls to have the piano "tuned= ".  I've been there before, and I was there again last night.  The= first hour and a half was spent repairing broken things and doing enough re= gulation so that it was at least playable.  Two of the more rusted wire= s snapped as I tuned them despite dropping them in pitch before raising them= a couple of cents.     When my work was finished, I played on it for while.  I'll be darne= d if it sound and played like a piano again!  There's still a good hear= t in there!   The fortunate thing is that the function is tonight, and not last night!=  Gives me a chance to go pull the new strings up and pickup my check(s= ince anyone who could sign one had left long before my 8:45 PM departure tim= e). It was one of those jobs where I should have charged by number of tools = used; it took me forever just to put everything back into it's designated sl= ot at the end of the night. There.  I feel better now.  Thanks for reading. Dave Stahl</HTML>