This may not be worthy of publication but just couldn't resist passing
along this little story.  A few years ago we owned an antique mall.
A gentleman showed up from Georgia and purchased, for $5000, a very
ornate, glass front, hand carved, seven-foot tall five-foot wide curio
cabinet just right for his home.  Of course he wanted it shipped to
Georgia.  A furniture shipper picked it up with all the care in the
world and guaranteed safe delivery.

The next thing we heard was about six months later when the gentleman
showed up at our mall on another trip.  It seems the shipper had loaded
their truck and it was full.  The last item was loaded in the only
space left and the doors closed to hold it in.  When the truck arrived
in front of the gentleman's home the driver got out, opened the doors,
and guess what?  Out fell the cabinet, flat on the concrete, and every
piece of glass was broken -- nothing left but a pile of splinters.
Can you imagine the heartbreak.  Moral to story: just be careful!

Now for a piano story.  We became acquainted with a gentleman and
his wife while visiting a museum where he was taking measurements
and specifications from an original T. J. Nichols calliope.  Being
a retired carpenter he was using a 1" wide carpenter pencil and a
six-foot folding rule.  The short of this story is that he eventually
built his calliope from parts of a pin setter from a bowling alley
he had torn down.  You have to just know Mr. Pitts -- he was just one
of those "Get 'er done" guys.

Mr. Pitts found himself a player piano.  Needless to say he went to
pick it up in his pickup truck to bring it home.  They got it loaded
in the truck okay.  Probably it was the first and only time he ever
moved a piano.  So on the way home, up and down the hills in the area
where he lived, you guessed it -- it fell out of the pickup and fell in
the middle of the highway.  A little heart broken, he picked up the
pieces and re-loaded it back in the truck.

Off they go again up and down the hills and you will never guess this
one: it fell out of the truck in the middle of the highway again!
This time it was smaller pieces as you might guess.  So he told us by
the time he got it home he used it for stove wood and scrapped the
rest.

So the bottom line is I suppose there are some basic rules in moving
pianos.  At least tie them in the truck before you start for home.

Myron Duffield
Ohio