The Piano

There are many good memories from my childhood. Among them is the memory of my grandmother. Here is a piece about her...

Running my fingers across the keys of the old upright in our entry way, I produced an out of tune rendition of "Bells Are Ringing"; the only Beethoven in my paled repertoire. It is the only song I know besides a two handed Chopsticks. I stare at the chipped and yellowed ivories, longing for my fingers to produce a flowing sonata. If only I had inherited her talent. I would be able to bring her piano back to life the way it used to fill the room with a beautiful mixture of single notes and chords.

My grandmother was a large boned and buxom woman of German descent, one of a pair of twins raised on an Iowa farm with a strict and conservative Methodist upbringing. She came out to California on a train, met a man, married at a late age, and bore my mother who was to be her only child...read more