Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for April 22, 2020

Piano salesman: do you know how to secure a piano in a truck?

Timmy: I’m a professional musician! I’ve been loading and unloading musical instruments for a long time!

Jimmy: And I’ve been helping him loading and unloading for the same amount of time!

Well, Mz. Prissy, you said he was a Ne’er do well guy! What did you expect? A Rubber Biscuit?

That was true of every school day I ever had.

I once heard the lost chord. I was working in a piano shop in Charlotte, NC, 1980. The owner was a concert pianist. Took his 9-foot Baldwin grand all over the southwest. To do this, the movers (3 of them, usually), take the pedal assembly off, then turn the piano onto the long side, onto a skid. Strap it fast, then take off the legs, load it up. On returning one day, they got it wrong. I was in the far corner of the shop, tuning a small upright piano, kinda watching out of the corner of my eye. Three guys on the under side, putting the legs on, you guessed it, the piano starts to lean. One guy actually tried to hold it back by the keyboard, had to let go. Strained ligaments. As the skid finally slipped, the piano landed flat, upside-down. The Lost Chord! All 88 notes of it. Unbelievable, unforgettable. Tuning pins had to be reset, many tunings later that boy was good as old. Strong beasts, those Baldwins. For fun, google Baldwin grand falls on Volvo Prinsengracht concert, Amsterdam. Car total loss. Piano okay after tuning.

If Jimmy is the ne’er do well of the family, does that mean that Timmy is a “sometimes do well”?

They need to get some help from Fred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge_4SlJWfl0

Or they could have Laurel and Hardy do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh5wzsy2q38

“…stand somewhere safer.” Yeah, like in the next county.

So which of the children referred to him as “ne’er do well”? Dang I should know all of their names by now. The kid with the big head? Certainly not Dill, perhaps Alice

I’m picturing Laurel & Hardy in “ The Piano Movers”. Perfect Strangers also had a great episode about moving a piano.

walk single file out the door and get behind the fence by the side of the school!

You can’t tie down a banjo man, but apparently, you can drop a piano on his foot…

Looking to buy a piano and saw an old upright in my price range. Asked the store manager if they could deliver it to my 3rd floor apartment (no elevator). He assured me it would be no problem. A couple of days later two guys showed up with the piano, which I estimate weighed half a ton. They had a hand-truck with wheels, and looked a bit daunted by the outside stairway, but they got the piano up to my apartment. Rested a bit and then asked if I ever needed that piano moved again to call someone else.

Be thankful the Piano Movers weren’t Laurel and Hardy…

You can’t tie a banjo man down, but you can pin him under a piano.

Timmy is the responsible brother, and Jimmy the ne’er-do-well?! I’d say they are “two peas in a pod”; but then I’m not Miss Bliss, who is trying to tie down the banjo man.

Regardless, today’s question is, does the piano survive the moving?