About 1955, when I was 13 or so, the old couple down the street
gave their player and 100 rolls to my parents.  They were moving and
down-sizing (I'm not sure what they called it back then) and at the
time, these things were hard to give away.

I was immediately taken -- I don't think I'd ever seen one before.
It was placed in the dining room, and I began playing, sorta.  There
were lots of things wrong, and I immediately started experimentation
to see how the thing worked and what controlled what.

I fixed a number of things gradually, like broken tubes, and got it
to the point that it was fun to play as long as you had strong legs.
I had some neighbors believing that I could play a piano, when I
couldn't even manage Chopsticks.  They loved Zampa.

It was from that collection that I fell for one-steps, Charley Straight,
and WW1 "fight" songs, not to mention marches and polkas.  The old
couple were not the blues type.

Then one day I came home from school about two years later and the
piano was gone.  My parents had pretty much given it away as my sister
"needed" piano lessons and this piano was not good enough.  It was
gone, I wasn't even consulted!

I vowed then that I would get another as soon as I was able, and bought
a plain old 88er just as soon as I got my first apartment after college.

Paul Eggert
Fountain Hills, Arizona