88 Keys

      My great-grandmother loved playing that old grand piano. Every night after dinner and on Sunday afternoons, she and my great-grandfather could be heard playing and singing cheery songs from the old country and even some of the newest tunes from this country. There wasn’t anything great-grandma couldn’t play.

Every time we would visit, the sounds of laughter and loud off-key singing from all of us could be heard filling the overheated living areas of great-grandma’s basement apartment.

      We tried to trick her by asking for special requests, but she couldn’t be fooled. She knew so many tunes and always matched wits with us.

      And that piano remained the focal point of the room and my great-grandparents’ and grandparents’ lives for decades. They made sure that the family gathered around that prized possession. We would all gather around and my great-grandparents would relate colorful family stories from the old country and especially the story of how they met and about the early years of their marriage.

They related that they first met when she was crossing the Atlantic from England on an old rickety steamship. Great-grandpa was a German immigrant working as a steamship stoker on that ship. After each of his four hour shifts, he would clean up and they would enjoy strolling around the deck, singing old songs and laughing and sharing a small glass of wine. 

They were married once the ship docked and they disembarked at what came to be known as the “Golden Door,” in New York City.

      They said that they both worked very hard at different jobs and after a few years, they opened their own business, a little delicatessen, right there in Astoria in Queens.

      My great-grandparents said they were always very frugal with their money. They didn’t believe in banks, either. The profit they made from their little deli was always kept in some secret hiding place that was never revealed to us. 

They both loved music and great-grandma was a proficient pianist, so once they had saved enough money for such an extravagant piece of furniture, they purchased a secondhand piano from the German piano builder, Steinway & Sons. It became the center of entertainment again during times when the family didn’t have much money or anything else for amusement. That piano was like a member of the family.   

Great-grandma was a wonderful teacher, too. She taught all her kids, including my dad’s parents, my dad and my aunts and uncles, how to play that old relic.     

      Years later, that old piano was passed down to my dad because he was the oldest grandchild. He wasn’t as diligent as great-grandma was in playing it, but he could play with the best of them, as well. 

      When we were old enough, he taught my sister, brother and me how to play. At the time, we thought it was boring and monotonous, but we all learned to play it just the same.

      Once dad got too old to play, it was passed down to me, his oldest child. I loved that piano, but eventually, I and my growing family moved past the lure of that old vestige from a previous era. It was big and bulky. And my family’s interests were more modern now and geared toward technology, not that old stogy piano!

One day, I saw an ad in the newspaper that the local musical museum was looking for musical instrument donations. It occurred to me that great-grandma’s old piano would be a perfect contribution. Younger people who had never even seen an heirloom that old would surely enjoy its qualities, and appreciate the workmanship and style of a long-forgotten time.

The museum was very happy to have great-grandma’s old antique, since it was so dated and one of the very early Steinway & Sons pianos made before the turn of the century. It was such a representative vestige of a time long since past. 

I told the curator that I wanted to loan the piano to the museum indefinitely. If something ever happened and the museum wanted to close, the piano would come back to me and my family.

The old curator agreed.

That vintage piano took up a large corner of the musical museum and was given a place of honor, but the joyful laughter and music and family gatherings it once provided was now silenced.

As with many non-profit organizations, the musical museum where my grandparents’ old piano was on display, funds were running low. Donations were falling off dramatically and the museum curator and the staff all thought the museum was a much too important part of history and the musical arts to close.

So the museum decided to have a concert. They would sponsor a fun concert right there on the premises. They would charge a small ticket fee and all the proceeds would go to the upkeep of the museum.

The curator of the museum, an accomplished pianist and musician himself, knew the old grand piano should be the main attraction of the concert.

He called me and asked if it was alright if they took the piano off display and use it in their annual concert.

I agreed wholeheartedly! What a great idea to have the museum sponsor a concert featuring instruments from the museum itself. 

The curator also explained that he would invite members of the local middle school and high school orchestras to play selected songs featuring classics and some contemporary pieces to get the community involved and enthused about the concert.

The curator knew the old piano would need to be tuned up after sitting idle for so many years. 

He called in one of the county’s best piano tuners to make the adjustments needed. Once he finished, that old piano would be as good as the day my great-grandparents bought it.

The tuner started to work on the timing of the piano. But something was wrong. He adjusted and aligned and re-aligned and adjusted. But the piano just didn’t sound right.

He called the curator over to see what he thought. The curator sat down and started to play. 

There was definitely something wrong. The sounds coming from that reliable old piano were flat and the adjustments the tuner made didn’t seem to help.

They were both puzzled. They lifted the lid and inspected all the bass and treble strings, the dampers, the tuning pins, everything. All the parts seemed to be in perfect order.

The curator tried playing again. The music still didn’t sound right. What was wrong they wondered?

The curator sat on the bench and continued staring at the piano, hoping for the answer. 

“We must have this beautiful piano in our concert! But what is wrong with its sound?” he thought.

He decided to play each key one at a time to try and isolate the problem. He started with the lower end of the piano, known as the bass clef area. Slowly, one finger at a time, he played a white key and then a black key until he reached Middle C. None of the keys sounded right to him. 

He performed the same ritual starting with the right side of the piano, the treble clef area, with the same results, out of tune, right down the keyboard. The piano tuner just stared blankly at the curator.

“This is a puzzle,” the curator said out loud to the piano tuner.   

Then the curator got an idea. He tapped the Middle C key several times. And he listened very intently.

Hmmm, he thought.

He asked the piano tuner to do something very unusual. He asked him to remove the Middle C key from the piano. The tuner did as he was told. Because the keys of a piano just rest on pins, without being secured down, they just lift off.

He pulled the Middle C key straight up.

The old curator examined the key by turning it round and round. 

And there it was!

Something was rolled up and carefully placed inside the key. He pulled out the rolled up paper.

He and the curator couldn’t believe their eyes. The rolled up paper was a $1,000 bill!

The curator asked the tuner to start at the higher end of the keys and he would start at the lower end. They carefully removed each key and unrolled its contents. There was a total of $88,000 in rolled up $1,000 bills!

The curator quickly called me. 

“You won’t believe what we’ve found,” he said excitedly when I answered my phone.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“We were tuning up your great-grandparents’ old piano and it just wasn’t sounding right. We tried and tried and then I decided we should remove the keys. And that’s where we found them!” he continued.

“Found what?” I asked.

“Hidden inside each key of that old piano, was a $1,000 bill for a total of $88,000!” he said incredulously.

“Oh, my goodness! I can’t believe it. That must have been where my grandparents hid all the profits from their little deli business. I remember they didn’t believe in banks back then,” I explained.

“Well, the money belongs to you and your family,” the curator said. “Please come and claim your great-grandparents’ inheritance they left for you.”

My siblings and I divided up the money and we gave the museum $15,000 to help with their shortfall of donations. 

After all, if it wasn’t for the curator wanting to have a concert and deciding to tune the old piano, we would never have known about the money my great-grandparents kept in their most prized possession.

The museum went on to sponsor a concert that year and every year following as their main fundraising event.

My great-grandparents’ old piano was infused with life again and entertained all age groups after all these years. 

      Middle C was the key to solving a decades’ old mystery.

      And that old piano played the sweetest tunes ever once the rolled up money was recovered. And its 88 keys never sounded so melodious.