If our old Kimball piano could talk---it'd
have a thousand stories to tell, and many
thousand tunes to recall.
In its busiest days it played church music
of all kinds...usually in a rehearsal mode...
gospel songs, hymns, octavo pieces,
cantatas, offertories...and then more than
that, there were the piano students who
studied with Donna and then Mil's voice
students. Who could ever recall them all?!
D.'s parents bought it--used--for her when
she was twelve and she began taking lessons.
She never looked back.
By the time I met her one summer when she
was almost seventeen, she was already a
good pianist. It came naturally to her...and
that fine piano helped.
When we returned from our brief wedding
trip that cold February day in 1957, almost
62 years ago, it was sitting there on the
south wall of our little apartment--- a
gift from her parents!
Not too long later, my new wife began teaching her
own piano students and there is no telling how many
she taught over the years until she began her public
school music career.
We were talking the other day and she figures
some of those young girls, who have played
all these years--some as church pianists--may
be sixty-five years old by now.
I taught voice lessons to a number of young
girls and boys---and some adults, and
that includes one trucker. Some went on to
be choir singers, soloists, and music
teachers.
That faithful instrument was a good traveler
and went with us everywhere, including more
than three years living in Childress, Texas---
and then twenty-four years over on Hannett
Ave. on the mesa, in the shadow of the
Sandias.
Then D.'s parents down-sized and gave her
a second piano---this time a nearly-new
Baldwin and our beloved Kimball went to
live for a time in Texas...to Laurel Leaf
Lane, outside Canyon.
Our granddaughter Kindell had the Kimball
there to learn on. There it rested for a dozen
years. I personally liked it better than the new
Baldwin.
It was loaded with memories.
But ah..you must hear the Rest of the Story....
Our granddaughter who lives near Nashville,
married last year…to a musician. Recently my
son and his wife hauled our beloved Kimball
to Tennessee in one long fifteen hour all-day
journey...Amarillo to Nashville...
It now lives in a quiet little bucolic town just
south of Nashville. A good sort of quiet
home for a fine instrument... which blessed
the world...from the day it was made.
How's this description for a poetic home----
"LAST STOP: Spring Hill, TENNESSEE."
(Our fond memories are with you, ever.)
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