ValueSpeak
A Weekly Column
By Joseph Walker
OUR BEAT UP OLD PIANO
I wasn’t trying to take advantage of Chris.
Honest, I wasn’t.
Not only was he a close and trusted work associate,
but he was a friend. We did things together socially. We had some great times
together (except when he was trying to convert me to British farce comedy,
which I could never really appreciate no matter how many times Chris made me
watch Monty Python). Why would I want to risk ruining that?
Especially over a beat up old
piano?
But Chris and his wife were in the middle of an ugly
divorce (which is not to say there is such a thing as a beautiful divorce, but
only to suggest that this one was particularly nasty), and Chris was getting
rid of stuff.
“Hey, you want a piano?” he asked me one day at work.
It was an intriguing idea. Anita and I had talked
about the value of music in the home, and we loved the idea of piano lessons
for our young children. But things were tight for us, and there wasn’t a lot of
room in the budget for lessons – much less, a piano.
“How much?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Chris said. “How much can you
afford?”
I really had no idea how much a piano is worth.
Honest, I didn’t. So I said the first number that popped into my mind – an
amount that sounded like a lot of money to me at the time, but was still
relatively doable for us financially.
“Fifty dollars,” I said.
“Sold!” Chris said, smiling.
“But you have to come get it on Saturday. I want it gone.”
So for $50 and the cost of a rental truck we bought a
piano. It wasn’t much to look at – time and children had already taken their
toll on the piano case – but it worked just fine. Once we had it tuned it
became a focal point for family musical growth and appreciation. All five of
our children have taken piano lessons on it (if you count Joe Jr.’s three-month exercise in pain and suffering as piano
lessons) and we have all used it for musical expression through the years.
Today that beat up old piano is still positioned
prominently in our front room – older and more beat up than it was when we
bought it from Chris. It rarely gets played anymore except by our
granddaughters, who delight in pounding on the keys whenever they visit. But it
is part of us, part of our history, part of our home.
And I’ve always felt a little guilty about it,
especially after I found out how much a good piano is actually worth. Even with
a slightly battered case, Chris probably could have demanded – and received –
10 times what we paid for it. My guess is he probably never thought another
thing about it. But I did, even after I changed jobs and lost contact with
Chris. I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable about it, like I got away with
something even though I wasn’t trying to.
Honest. I wasn’t.
Thankfully, life will usually give you an opportunity
to repay a debt like that. Our opportunity came a few weeks ago. A young man in
our neighborhood was looking to borrow a fiddle to use during a four-day
camping activity that our church was sponsoring, and it just so happened that
during our family’s musical journey we had purchased a nice violin that was now
sitting in our basement gathering dust. We were pleased to let the young man
use it, and we enjoyed the beautiful sounds he was able to coax out of those
old, dusty strings.
At the end of the camp the young man’s mother asked
if we would be willing to sell the old violin. Anita and I looked at each other
and smiled.
“Sure,” we said. “And we already know the perfect
price.”
The young man’s mother balked at the suggestion.
“That violin is worth way more than $50,” she said. “I’d feel like I was taking
advantage of you.”
So we told her the story of our beat up old piano,
and we sold her the violin for $50.
And we didn’t feel the least bit taken advantage of.
Honest. We didn’t.
# # #
— © Joseph Walker
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