My Grandfather Tryanski was a welder. He was soft-spoken and kind, a man as gentle as he was strong. He worked hard, with his hands, five days a week, from 4:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, and by the time he got home from work, when he walked through the door, he was often hunched over with exhaustion.
On the weekends, my grandfather moved in and out of the house through the front door. He loved to sit on the front porch and wave to the neighbors. He loved to watch the neighbors’ kids as they tried to fish hockey pucks out of the sewer when a shot went wide along the outside. He kept a can of tennis balls on the porch, and every now and then, he would toss one into the middle of the street when it looked like a kid was going to have to actually climb into the sewer to retrieve the puck. As the kids fought over who was going to climb into the sewer, my grandfather would toss a tennis ball out into the street. The sound of the bounce shifted the kids’ attention, and as they moved away from the sewer, chasing after the ball with their hockey sticks, my grandfather would light a cigarette, take a long drag in and allow the hint of a smile to escape from the corner of his mouth as cigarette smoke escaped from the corners of his nose.
My grandfather loved to sit on that porch on the weekends, but during the week, when he came home from work, he always entered the house through the back door, and if you happened to be in the kitchen when he stepped inside, you could feel the energy shift. The molecules in the room realigned. You couldn’t see them, but you could feel them as they tried to lift Grandpop’s spirits and ease the weight of the day off of his tired slumped shoulders.
The first thing Grandpop did when he came home was to head upstairs for a shower and a nap. An hour and a half later, he would make his way downstairs, go back in the kitchen, and fix a cup of instant coffee. He liked it dark and sweet: three heaping teaspoons of coffee, three teaspoons of sugar, enough boiling water to dissolve everything in an instant, and just enough evaporated milk to get the coffee to balance perfectly but precariously, right at the edge of his coffee cup. His first sip was always a long slurp. Times like these were made for Taster’s Choice.
Once he finished his coffee, Grandpop would make his way into the dining room, past everything that belonged in a dining room- the dining room table, chairs, the family china. There was a buffet with a huge mirror that made the tiny little room look just a little bit larger. He would move past all of that to a tiny oasis he had created in the corner of the room with one of the dining room chairs, a simple metal music stand, and his shiny black Sonola accordion. The Sonola was beautiful, jet black with ivory keys and polished chrome trim. My grandfather would pick up that bizarre contraption- piano keys, buttons and bellows- he would squeeze the box, and he would fill the house with one of the most uniquely beautiful sounds in the world.
I loved to watch my grandfather play the accordion. It was such an unusual, old world instrument- Polish bagpipes in a box. I was amazed that anyone could get the thing to produce sound, let alone make beautiful music. You had to tap the keys with your right hand, press the buttons with your left hand, and maneuver the bellows by pushing them in and pulling them out at just the right time. The accordion had to sound like it was inhaling when it was supposed to be inhaling and exhaling when it was supposed to be exhaling. It was elegantly complex. My grandfather breathed life into the thing, and as he did, I would think to myself, “how does he do that?” I thought that if I could learn to be even half the musician he was, that would be amazing, but I couldn’t imagine how to even begin? And that’s how I decided that I wanted to learn how to play the piano.
I knew I could play the piano. It was so much less complicated than the accordion. All you had to do was get your fingers to dance across the keys. No buttons, no bellows- just keys. I could do that. You don’t have to squeeze a piano; you don’t have to wear a piano. Lots of people played the piano: Billy Joel, Elton John, my cousins. My Uncle Bob had one in his basement. We had plenty of space to put one in our basement. It was the perfect instrument for me. I imagined myself on stage with Billy Joel on my right side and Elton John on my left. My grand piano would be front and center dueling with Billy on Piano Man, jamming with Elton on Rocket Man and bringing the crowd to its feet when all three of us launched into my signature ballad- Manayunk Man. But pianos are expensive, and at the age of six, I had no idea what it meant to have a mortgage payment, catholic school tuition, uniforms, grocery bills, and the constant threat that it could all fall apart with a pink slip of paper.
When my Uncle Bob moved his family out to the suburbs, he decided not to take the piano with him. But he also didn’t ask us if we wanted it, and my parents never offered to take it off his hands. It would be a long time before we had a piano in our basement, in our dining room or any other room in our house. But, I still had hope.