For billions (well, at least millions) of people all over the world, 2016 was a trying, bad, horrible, no-good twelve-month period.
From personal problems all the way to global issues, this year was a testing one...to say the least.
The way I see it, the clincher came on 11-8-2016.
Because 62 million Americans preferred this man to run this country's government (and he got the magic number of electoral votes as a result), most of the world's remaining 7.1 billion people (including the 65 million US voters who wanted the first woman who ever won a major political party's presidential nomination here in these fifty states) received coal in their stockings.
The Chinese didn't term this "The Year of the Monkey" for nothing...and they weren't talking about a dance from the 1960s.
I hope we all can survive 2017...let alone see it turn into a Happy New Year.
Well, this morning, as I promised I would, I made it out to Stinson Park at Aksarben Village here in Omaha.
I was fired up, pumped up, ready to play just the second "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano I intended to encounter.
Took a while, but I found Stinson's Kranich & Bach "Mirrapiano," which, according to the latest from http://omahapianos.com, had been redecorated and retuned.
I arrived at the park at 9:38 AM (Central time).
Tried out the keys to make sure they worked...only to find...only most of the lower-register keys and about one-third of the remaining keys made a sound.
I didn't know Goliath was still very much alive, had moved from Israel to the United States, settled in this country's 43rd largest city (not counting the suburbs...remember?), and had taken up the best-known musical instrument there is.
Well, the Omaha Creative Institute's chief, Susan Thomas, did say that not all ten of the Omaha Metro's "Play Me" pianos were expected to survive the event.
Still, it would've been nice to do all the things I'd like to do on that K&B "Mirrapiano." One cool thing about Robert Cook's reincarnation of that piano is that, with the chalk provided, you can put your name (if there's room) or your initials on the soundboard.
Well...around 10:08 AM, I arrived at my safety valve: Memorial Park.
Anyway...the Stinson Park experience has led to an important new strategy for me: If I find that any of the next pianos end up like Stinson's did, I'll go back to Memorial Park. And I'll email people to let them know about it.
And another thing about coming to Stinson Park at Aksarben Village: I was able to, for the first time in my life, shoot videos. (I'm lucky they turned out fine, and it won't be long before I get to upload them to YouTube.)
When I come back, I'll let you know what happened when I tried to make the fourth time at Memorial Park a charm, too.
