OK, so I don't write much on this blog anymore.  It's not very interesting, anyhow, and I've kinda subliminated my opinions, heck, nobody listens anyhow, right?

But I simply must share my latest boondoggle with the world.  It's a 1926 Kimball player piano.  The player part doesn't work, and even the regular piano stuff sounds pretty funky -- like the rinky-tink noise you'd hear in some Wild Western dance hall.

But heck, the cabinet looks great, and the guts of the player part are still there, and I now have two boxes of piano rolls, most of them Czechoslovakian folk songs, since the original owners were Bohemians from Cicero (I should know, since I have the original 1926 bill of sale in the matching piano bench).

Sit back and allow me to regale you with the Saga of the Piano.

There was an ad in the classified section of the suburban newspaper, proclaiming a player piano for $100.  Was it a typo?  I had to call and find out.  No, it wasn't.  The player part didn't work, I was told upfront, but the piano itself was OK.

Curiosity piqued, I drove out to Westchester to check it out -- in some deceased old woman's basement.

It looked great!  The cabinet was in fabulous shape, a lever on the front cleverly let down the pump pedals, and there were those two boxes of Czechoslovakian piano rolls, after all.  I couldn't resist -- I wrote the check then and there.

Then reality set in.  I had to get the sucka out the basement and into my house.  A little Yellow Pages cold-calling revealed that most movers don't handle pianos, and the guys who do charge a left nut.  I finally landed one that sounded reasonably priced, and figured I was home free.

Lo and behold, the day of the Great Migration, the mover called to tell me he couldn't get the piano out of the original owner's basement!  "How the hell did they get it in in the first place???" I asked.  Turns out that even if slight architectural modifications were made in the house over the years, it could compromise the ability to move the piano -- even an inch or two of lost headroom makes the difference between delivery and despair.

But the mover had an idea -- he knew a piano guy who could take the thing apart at the original owner's house, move the piano to my house, and reassemble it there.  Great!  Except for the fact that the piano guy charged extra for this service, which now put the moving bill up to much more than I paid for the thing in the first place.

So then we had to coordinate another date at the convenience of the mover, the original owner, and the piano guy.  Doing this was analogous to coordinating the Landing at Normandy.  And when they finally hit on a date, and I think we're golden, I get a call on my cell phone in the middle of a meeting at work.  The mover's truck has broken down en route to the owner's house and they have to reschedule!

Now I'm pissed, and absolutely determined to get the goddamn thing into my house ASAP, at ANY price.  The day finally comes, everyone worked it out, and now it's standing in my dining room, a really big paperweight at this point.  But damn, it looks good!  Never mind the fact that the Piano Guy predicts the thing needs a "massive overhauling" that could include restringing, replacing the sound board, and a lot more expensive stuff.

The latest: Piano Guy #2 (at the recommendation of my son's piano teacher) comes out to take a gander at the behemoth and assess the damage.  (This is just to get the thing playing, for starters.  Never mind the player piano mechanism, which is a mind-boggling mass of gears, tubing, levers, bellows large and small, and other arcane stuff not even related to what happens when you press your finger against a key.)  I feel like I'm at the auto repair shop, when the guy sticks his head under the hood and shakes his head, saying nothing.

Actually, the news is surprisingly good -- the sound board is OK (since the keys aren't buzzing), the cabinet is in good shape (did I mention the cabinet is in good shape?), and there is no serious damage or abuse, just age.  He can partially restring, replace the felts, and do some other stuff that I don't understand for a couple of grand.  Great.  Of course, this STILL doesn't take care of the player piano part -- since there's only one guy in the area who does that, and he's literally booked up months in advance (who knew there were that many of these things sitting around in people's basements?).  And that will be another couple of grand.

The surprising news?  It's STILL a deal.  Evidently, a big, beautiful Kimball piano like this simply isn't available at any price in today's market, and anything comparable would run in the five figures, Piano Guy #2 says.  Or maybe he just hates to see a grown woman cry.

So anyway, in a week or so, he'll start taking things apart, measuring strings, and ordering parts.  And I'll be out some money.  But when it's done -- well, I'll be able to play it, kinda like the 1960s out-of-tune Winter that's sitting in my living room, staring daggers at the elegant old Kimball in the dining room.

Hey, some people gamble -- some shoot dope -- others drink.  I sink my money into boondoggles...

Stay tuned.