Play On

Husby and I both love music.

When we married, one of our biggest problems was how to mesh two gi-normous (my word) record collections.

We did it (and still have it . . . somewhere . . .).

We both love to sing, but only Husby plays an instrument. (You should hear him on the bass guitar!)

With the acquisition of our new piano, we discovered a whole new world of music in the one hundred seventy+ rolls (dating from the early 1900s) that accompanied it.

The words are usually written on the rolls, so, as they play, one can sing along. If one is so inclined.

We were.

At the top of our voices because, hey, that sucker is loud!

When there weren’t any words, we had a plethora of non-musical - musical instruments to accompany. Kazoos. Noisy, rhythm gadgets. A Stumpf (yes, I spelled it right) fiddle.

Our family spent hours around that piano. Making music.

Or, more probably, noise. But we absolutely loved it.

And our kids know all the words to such timeless classics as: Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?; Pip, Pip, Toot, Toot Good-bye-ee; The Hawaiian War Chant; Little Bo-Peep Has Lost Her Jeep; Over the Waves; Shuffle Off to Buffalo; I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream; Hungarian Goulash and dozens (I do mean dozens) more.

A little aside here: Those words pop up at the best times. When our daughter met her future husband (a man from England with accompanying beautiful accent) she hit him with the words to Pip, Pip. And received what we have discovered is an appropriate response, “I’ve never used that word in my life!”

Can I say it? That piano changed our lives – or more correctly, molded our lives.

One last story tomorrow . . .

Mr. Stumpf. You though I was kidding, right?