Two weeks ago I wrote about playing the piano, with Professor Hagel as my teacher for awhile. In case you didn't figure it out, “Vun unt do unt tree mit der dum” was his way of saying , “One and two and three with the thumb,” when telling me how to position my fingers.

When I left home I was living with Joan Vogeney in a small Brownstone apartment in Manhattan. We both played the piano and missed doing so. We heard about someone in the country who was giving a piano away and we jumped at the opportunity.

I just had to pay the moving costs so we got Leewe and Schmidt's Trucking to move it for $25. When we moved to Astoria, a couple of years later someone got a free piano because we couldn't afford to move it to our new apartment on the third floor.

After I was married my mother asked if it was okay with me if she get rid of the piano. It was taking up too much room in their small living room and I agreed. She had already gotten rid of an attachment that could be moved to the front of the piano which transformed it into a player piano.

My father had found that at an auction and we kept it on our enclosed front porch. I think I still have rolls that had gone with it in my attic. When Jim and I moved to a house in River Edge, N.J. I saw a used upright piano advertised in our local paper. I don't remember what it cost. I think moving was included. It came already painted white and we kept it for many years.

Besides me our daughter learned to play it. When I got rid of it, replacing it with a new Grand one, Patricia mourned the loss of the old one because she said it had sounded much better than the new one, which I still have. A friend of mine owned a piano and while she was away on a trip her husband donated it to their church, without telling her. I don't recommend that.

Patricia got Aunt Dot's piano after she died. Since they lived on the same block that one just had to be rolled down the street to her house.

When she moved from Hackensack to River Edge she took the piano with her and she and her son, Ryan both play it so we are both keeping ours. I haven't been practicing as often as I vowed but often enough to make it worthwhile.