CARESSING THE KEYS OF MEMORY...

This is another of those tales that I know I intended

to relate a while back, but can't remember if I've actually

done so or not.  Anyway, back in 1972 when my family first

took up residence in my present abode, the family with whom

we swapped houses left a piano behind.  I can no longer recall

how long we kept it, whether it was a year, two years - may-

be even going on three, but my parents at some stage

decided to dispense with its rarely used services.

None of my family played the piano, and apart from a

rare visitor occasionally tickling its ivories, the poor 'box

in the corner' lay neglected for the most part.  So my father

gifted it to the town's local hospital, and a contingent of kids in

the charge of an adult (I have a vague memory they may have

been Scouts, but I'm not certain) came to our home one day

and wheeled away our unwanted house-guest.  I wonder

how it felt being so unceremoniously evicted?

I've long been afflicted with a tendency to imbue in-

animate objects with sentience, feelings, emotions - even

personality.  What can I say?  I'm off my head!  But did you

know that, apparently, when plants and trees are pruned, they

scream?  (It's far beyond the ability of human ears to detect, but

scientists have registered the 'sound' on audio machines attuned

to a certain wavelength.)  True, plants and trees are 'alive' in a
sort of way;  they grow - not something that a piano (or any
other inanimate item) in the corner of the living-room
does.  (As far as anyone knows anyway.)

However, if you cut a leaf in half, and then subject it to a
certain kind of infra-red spectrum analysis, the visual image
displays the outline of the full leaf.  So, imagine if a tree, even
after it's been chopped up and turned into furniture, yet retains
a part of whatever measure of 'awareness' it may have had
when it was growing in a forest or field somewhere?  Too
far-fetched?  Perhaps, but who can say for sure?

Anyway, where am I going with this you may be won-

dering.  Years after the fact, I learned that our old piano had

been passed onto the church situated across the road from our

former house.  The fellow who told me was one of the boys who'd

helped remove the piano from our address.  Turned out he was a
friend of a friend, and what's more, coincidentally lived next door
to another of our previous homes, 'though not at the time we'd
lived there.  (That's neither here nor there, but I thought it
was an interesting example of how 'fate' works.)

The woman who now lived in our former residence

would undoubtedly have been in that church on occasion,

even if only for a jumble sale or a coffee morning.  Given my

over-active imagination, I found myself wondering if she might

ever have passed her/our old piano without recognising it, and

whether it had called out to her in its inaudible voice, not under-

standing why someone it knew was now ignoring it.  "Hello, it's

me - don't you remember me?  I lived with you once and then

you went away one day and left me behind.  What did I do

wrong?  Did I offend you by being out of tune perhaps?

Why won't you acknowledge me?"

Same goes for myself.  Although no longer living in
the area, I was back in that church many a time over the
years.  As was my mother in fact, as she attended its Sunday
services every week.  I restricted myself to jumble sales and
Christmas and Summer fayres, but I surely must have passed
the piano, or even stood close to (or against) it on one of my
many visits over a period of nearly 20 years.  Did that poor
piano also call out to me (or my mother), unable to com-
prehend why we turned a deaf ear to its cries?

The church was demolished in around '91 or '92 (due
to structural flaws) and a new (and different) building was
erected in its place.  I took numerous photos, both inside and
out, before the old church (which had only been completed in
1965 or '66) was erased from the face of the planet, and our old
piano - if it hadn't been replaced or dispensed with by that time -
is surely in one of those pics.  It was a large church, with two or
three pianos in different halls, but I think I got photos of all of
them.  Trouble is, they're in a box in the loft at the moment,
so I can't check - or illustrate this post with a piccie.
I'll add one later when I find them.

In the meantime, I've used a stock photo of a piano,
which will have to do the job for now.  I guess it's always
possible that the piano still survives in the new church build-
ing, and now that the thought has occurred to me, I'll make a
point of visiting one day to see if it is.  If it's there, I'll be sure
to say hello to it, and run my fingers over its keys, just for old
times' sake.  If it isn't, I'll gaze upon it's image in one of my
photos and bid it goodbye.  After all, it's a friend from
the past, and doesn't deserve to be forgotten.

Posted in: Cartoons