How I became a piano tuner
This story actually begins in 1968 while I was attending Mount Ellis Academy in Bozeman, Montana. I was quite active in the music department studying trumpet, tuba, voice, choir and band. The head of the Music Department, Mr Crandall, decided to teach a couple of young men to tune pianos as a way to earn money for school and to save the school money so they wouldn't have to have a professional come in to do it.
I was NOT one of those young men. However, I did observe while they learned and thought "I could do that". Having no earthly idea what I was actually talking about.
Now go ahead to 1976. I'm in the US Army stationed at Fort Hood, TX and living in Copperas Cove, Texas. One day I was visiting in someone's home that happened to be having their piano worked on (you could tell, because the piano was opened up and part of the inside was missing for repairs). Well, I made a bold claim that "I knew how to tune a piano." Once again, having no earthly idea what I was actually talking about. Well the owner of the piano happened to mention to the piano tuner that was fixing her piano about me, and he called me up asking for help because he was swamped with work.
Well, what was I to do? What could I do? Exactly! I started making excuses ('cause I would never lie). First I told him that I did not have any tools or equipment needed to tune pianos, AND that I was just a beginner and needed further training and practice. He showed me from a catalog how much it would cost to buy the tools I needed and I informed him that since I was a lowly enlisted man it would take awhile to save up for the purchase. Trying not to let him know that hell would probably freeze over first.
About a month later, I was selling a car. The person wanting to buy my car was another lowly enlisted man. We had agreed on the price, but he also wanted me to throw in with the sale, the brand new CB radio I had installed recently (you notice I had the money for a new CB radio). I had no intension of doing that. You may remember how popular CB radios were back then. Well they were extremely popular with military personnel.
Well, wouldn't you know it? The ground started getting colder and colder (from hell, of course). Because that lowly enlisted man, in the past had made a futile attempt to learn piano tuning, had given up and had all the tools needed for piano tuning just collecting dust. So, I traded that CB radio for those tools and the rest as they say is history. I guess God wanted me to be a piano tuner so that I could have an earthly idea what I'm actually talking about (as far as pianos go).
All the other stuff... God and I are still working on that.
