Prior to its exile to the frat house, it had been in my care at my old house in Central Islip for a dozen years, after my parents' house had been sold. My four-year jaunt on the high seas shook things up quite a bit. The piano might have stayed there with those University knuckleheads forever, except that I changed my mind about a) the cruise ship life and b) Poconos life.
Here in Patchogue I already have the baby grand piano, which serves all my playing needs. However a new itch has developed -- that of being a piano tuner -- and that itch will be scratched with the help of this 1968 Baldwin Acrosonic. I'm unable to get an exact meaning for the word "acrosonic" -- it's simply a cool model name which tries to say "this piano sounds really good".
And it certainly did sound good to me when I first played it, in its birth year, in a Baldwin showroom. I'd already been playing for six years, but I'd come to hate the tone of the Knabe Grand which had served as my starter piano. Its hammers were very worn-down and tired, and the sound was rather dull compared to that of many other pianos I'd tried.
For their part, mom and dad were happy to get rid of the 7-foot grand because it took up way too much space in the already-small living room. Couch space had suffered over the six years. Even worse - we were forced to get a little four-foot Christmas tree in December and stick it on top of the grand piano. All those unused Christmas tree ornaments because of Steve and his damn piano.
I have no fantasy or desire to make a living tuning pianos, especially in this high-tech musical century. Nonetheless the craft of it has become increasingly fascinating in recent years. I saw a lot of pianos tuned on the ships, one guy tuning five pianos in one afternoon while the ship is docked in some big city. Based on some conversations with my long-time piano tuner Jerry "The Piano Doctor" Gravina, I may be well suited for this, and I'm looking forward to this new adventure.
Benny was already familiar with this piano from the Central Islip years, and he quickly placed himself on the bench, within a few minutes of the delivery, like a reunion with an old friend. In deference to both of my "old friends", I placed a towel on the bench -- so right now it's Benny's favorite sleeping (and flopping) spot around here.
As it happens, Benny's habits were changing with the cooling of the weather. Instead of disappearing into the balmy summer night until morning, he's recently inclined to be more of an "indoor cat", staying home in the evening, usually on the Benny Bench.
An internet "Cat Years Calculator" has declared Benny's twelve years to be the equivalent of 64 human years. So Benny and I are -- for the first and only time -- in the same phase of life, a pair of late-middle-agers ready for retirement, or something like it.
I guess that means he'll be racing toward old age before I do. But you'd never know it to look at him. He's svelte and agile, and one would never know he's twelve years old. I'd like to think that the fun and adventurous "outdoor cat life" has been beneficial for him, and every mouse kill was a visit to the Fountain of Cat Youth.
Also in middle age is the Baldwin Acrosonic. A recent NY Times article said that the life expectancy of a piano was 90 years. The article spoke of the Golden Age of the American Home Piano (1900-1930) before radio and TV, when buying some piano sheet music for a new popular tune was a major event in a family. There were a plethora of pianomakers in those years, almost all of whom are gone now. The great majority of pianos manufactured then are now in hopeless disrepair, and being dumped by the thousands in landfills. Perhaps that old Knabe grand has gone that route.
But not the Baldwin Acrosonic. After it serves me as a practice-tuning piano, it should have many good years left, and I'll give it a decent home. I feel that it was born under a lucky star, as was Benny, as was me.
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