A Mentor for Alex

Over the past two years, Alex (also known as "A") has been going through a piano tuning course, practicing on our own piano and tuning the pianos of friends whenever he gets the chance. But he always felt like he was missing something. He needed a teacher, a mentor, and had called a few local tuners to see if they would be willing to take an apprentice. All said no.

Last week, a friend put Alex in contact with an elderly man who is moving out of his home. This man is blind, and had been a piano tuner for 40 years. He had a lifetime of knowledge and piano tuning and repair equipment  in his home, and all he wanted was a worthy person to pass it all down to. Alex is over the moon to be that person.

And so the 80-year-old man whose hearing isn't what it used to be, who hadn't been down to his basement in three years, took Alex down there, blew the dust off a room full of tools and told Alex he could have it all, if Alex would just tune his piano.

He came home with old bottles of then-locally-made lubricants and glues,

antique tins full of tiny instruments used in piano repair,

...and more tools than Alex could  have ever hoped to acquire. Some of them cream of the crop, some clever hand-made inventions of a master of his trade. 

Their weekly meetings are now the thing that Alex looks forward to most, and each week he returns home with boxes of this kind man's lifetime career. Yes, he comes home with his arms (and truck!) full, but I can see that he is full, too. His spirit is soaring, and his brain is buzzing with the knowledge the man is so generously giving him—a lifetime of tips, tricks, and secrets. My husband is brimming with possibilities again, and it is good.