Job 2: Barn Un-Raiser

A while after my stint as a delivery boy, my mother decided that I needed to develop a work ethic. At least, that is what she said. I am still under the strong suspicion that she wanted me out of the house. Seeing as our family had no paternal influences (my parents were divorced when I was young, and my Father had moved out to California never to be heard from again), my mother would pawn off any fatherly like duties to the neighborhood man types, uncles, or in this case Kenny's father Mr. Maguire. Mr. Maguire was a piano man. He dealt with all forms of piano repair, refinishing, restoration, buying, selling, moving and what have you. His business, oddly enough, was called Complete Piano Service. Mr. M was a thinking man. The kind of guy that would sit quietly rubbing his chin, for what seemed like hours. After being asked a simple question like, "What time will Kenny be back from the doctor", he would ponder a long while, and then respond, "Hmmm, around seven". He liked to emit the sound "hmmm" whenever rubbing his chin. "Hmmm, I think we should eat lunch, at oh, say, noon" (rub rub).

Mr. Maguire was charged with the task of teaching me a work ethic. As he felt his own son was lacking in that department, he figured he'd kill two lazy birds with one stone. He had recently purchased an old barn in Farmingdale, NY that he wanted to convert into a piano refinishing shop. After what seemed like hours of hmmms and long winded stories of his work history and the evils of laziness and sloth, he explained that he wanted us to gut the inside of "The Barn". He was actually going to pay us to destroy it. This is the kind of work Kenny and I did on a daily bases with bb guns and rocks and stuff. Talk about the right men for the job. It would seem that Mr. M really was a thinker.

The Barn destruction went well. Besides the blisters we received from crowbars and sledgehammers, we had a blast. Mr. M paid a reasonable salary, and Kenny and I were on top of the world. Unfortunately, our barn destruction days were short lived. After all demolition projects were finished, and the barn had been converted into a respectable piano facility, Kenny and I were demoted from barn destructors to lowly piano shop peons. We were reduced to doing any menial job available for Complete Piano Service. The sweet days of crowbars and sledgehammers were over.

To this day I think about starting a barn destruction company. Unfortunately, I don't think the work is out there.