Our friends, Ron and Elda Jackson, had invited us to stay with them in Nanaimo until Saturday, when we have to go back to Vancouver and from there to Mission, but Jim and I decided that logistically it was not practical; it would have meant driving from Nanaimo to Port Alberni (about two hours), off-loading the pianos, playing the concert, striking the pianos, loading them back onto the truck, and then driving back to Nanaimo the same night.  Much as we wanted to spend time with our friends, it was just too much.

Everyone was up by 8:30 a.m., and we had a sumptuous breakfast, courtesy of Ron and Elda, which we ate in their dining room which overlooks, via a solarium, the Strait of Georgia across to the mountains on the mainland.  At the edge of their property, which leads down to the shore, we could see two windblown, gnarled trees, and on top of the left-hand one was the nest of a bald eagle.  After breakfast, we took our coffee into the solarium and spent the next hour talking and watching the eagles as they went about whatever business eagles do early in the morning.

Jim and I didn't want to leave, since we see our friends so seldom, but we had to get to Port Alberni in the early afternoon in order to meet the stage crew, so after loading our bags into the truck, and checking the straps holding the pianos, we said good-bye ('till tomorrow), and set out.  Port Alberni is about half way across the island, and we had a pretty easy drive; still, the winding narrow road, often overlooking pretty formidable drops, reinforced our decision not to attempt the drive back to Nanaimo in the dark.  I do have to mention that the route took us through an area called "Cathedral Grove", which is essentially old-growth forest, and has the largest trees I've ever seen in my life.  Eventually, we emerged out the other side and came upon  a mountain lake on our right (north) that was about half a mile wide, and so clear and still, with no wind, that we honestly couldn't tell where the ground stopped and the water began; on the other side, a little up the mountain, was a wooden railway trestle, and its perfect reflection made this impression even more vivid.  I was sitting in the passenger seat with an unobstructed view, and actually got a sense of vertigo if I stared for too long, it looked so much like a limitless precipice.

After checking into our hotel, we proceeded to the high school where we were to meet volunteers to help with the offloading of the pianos.

This is the first time I've covered this topic in these journals, and I want to say from the outset that moving two grand pianos is not as hard as it looks... provided you don't have to do the actual lifting, of course!  What is supposed to happen is as follows (one piano at a time):

First, the straps are loosened that hold the piano flush against the side of the truck.  We use two straps per instrument, and each strap has a ratchet mechanism in the buckle that is released by squeezing a metal cross piece in the middle; this takes considerable hand strength, so we usually ask one of the volunteers to do it.  The first time we ever did this, we had the you-know-what scared out of us, as it makes a heck of a bang, amplified by the freely vibrating strings of the instrument.  Each end of the strap has a metal hook which loops under one of the bars running along the inside of the truck.

Once the straps are removed, the piano is standing freely, and though the centre of gravity is very low, you always have to keep balance as a high priority.  Once a piano starts to go, you don't stick around and try to stop it.  However, a piano on its side (strapped to a proper skid) is very stable, and as long as you're careful, there shouldn't be any problems.  In over twenty years, with Jim and I doing the supervising, we've never even had a close call.

The next task is to get the piano off the truck and into the hall, still on its side.  This is where the volunteers start to do their stuff.  Once the piano is positioned in the middle of the truck, pointing towards the ramp which has, in the meantime, been extended, it is then literally slid down (hence the name piano "skid") and onto the ground (if there is no loading dock) or onto the floor (if there is, as today).  The trickiest part is while it is sliding down the ramp, and this is where keeping an eye on balance is critical.  As I said, though, the low centre of gravity makes it very stable.

Once off the truck, the piano is put onto a dolly in order to be wheeled into the hall and, one hopes, directly onto the stage.  Sometimes this isn't possible, in that it has to be moved through the hall and up a set of stairs, but today, with the backstage facilities, we didn't have that problem.

Putting the piano onto the dolly is where the first real lifting happens.  Our skids are essentially reinforced padded boards a foot or so wide (the width of a grand piano with no legs) and slightly over nine feet long, with a strong wooden flange at one end to serve as a stop for the keyboard end of the piano.  They each have short straps all along the sides and long ones at both ends, designed for lifting the instrument while it is strapped to the skid.  To get it onto the dolly, the nose end is angled up by two people lifting the piano via the straps on the end, so the flange end, with the keyboard, stays on the ground.   At this point, either Jim or I wheels the dolly under, positioning it so it is in line with the skid, and the piano is then let gently down with the whole thing ready to wheel into the hall.  No problem!  Once the piano is on-stage, the reverse process takes it off the dolly, and the straps holding it to the skid are removed; it is now sitting freely, still on the skid, and is ready to have the legs attached and to be tipped down off its side.  Throughout, balance remains the highest priority.

At this point, two legs are attached: the nose leg, which is near the floor, and the treble keyboard leg, which is at about eye level.  The main thing we have to be careful of (besides balance) is to make sure the nose leg gets the long bolts.  Once the legs are attached, then the fun begins.  Actually, it's not nearly as hard as it sounds.  First, we make sure there are men at both ends of the piano, and that the men at the nose are aware that, as the piano is tipped down, they are to take weight off the back leg, since, at least momentarily, that end takes almost the total weight of the piano.  They don’t actually have to lift it up, just take some of the strain off.  The people at the keyboard end are charged with tipping the piano gently down ‘till it is resting on the front leg, the back leg, and the legless corner still on the skid.  Oh yes, before we tip it down, we push the keyboard end slightly so that when the piano is tipped down, the corner doesn’t slip off the skid and come banging onto the floor.  A two-inch fall wouldn’t hurt the instrument, but might take a chunk out of the corner’s finish.

Once it’s resting on the two legs and the corner (it looks alarming, but really is designed to do this), the men are repositioned, and it’s a simple matter of lifting up the remaining side and holding it in place while either Jim or I position the remaining leg; the piano is then gently lowered onto it, making sure that the dowels are lined up so they fit as the instrument comes down.  The men can now relax while the bolts are screwed in, though we ask them to remain at ready, just in case something happens (it never has).  After the last leg is attached, the pedal lyre is screwed in place, and presto, one piano ready to play.  The process is then repeated with the other piano.

Jim and I have gotten to the point where we can have both pianos off the truck and set up in forty minutes; however, even though we can do it easily, this makes an extended tour really grueling.  Essentially, we are doing two jobs instead of one.  Next fall, it looks like we’re going to have a fifteen-to-twenty-concert tour of the western provinces, and needless to say Bill Chapple would have been our traveling companion.  We still can’t believe he’s gone.

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