A requiem for tunes

If you’ve arrived here from the Corndancer dot com Photo of the Week, this continues the saga. If you’ve arrived here independently of the original story, and your curiosity is piqued, you can check it out here.

An abandoned building with an abandoned piano

It was hard to miss. A ravished and bedraggled piano in front of an long unoccupied building. You just don’t see that every day. Makes you wonder why the building is boarded and why the now tuneless piano was unceremoniously left in the lurch.

These conditions also give you a good reality check. It seems a shame to abandon what might have been a serviceable piano to the elements and vandals. But it’s done and we saw it too late. End of story. That’s the reality.

Diagonal clapboards yeid a distinctive appearance.

The joy of met expectations

While we lament the demise of an abandoned and disheveled piano, most of us believe similarly  shopworn old barns are pretty cool. Perhaps it’s because we expect old barns to be in disrepair. And we like it when our expectations are readily met.

If you’ve ever wondered about the notched doors on old barns, I was told once by an old-building aficionado that the additional height achieved by notching the doors was to admit a man on a horse or a wagon full of hay, An engineering buddy added that the triangular structure affords a bit of additional strength.

What we expect. Snaggle-toothed and still standing

A few miles further down the country road, I happened across another old barn which fully subscribed to our alleged barn expectation criteria. Still standing, showing the ravages of years and untoward weather. The discovery came at a good time. Had I arrived just a few minutes later, the sun would have dropped below the horizon and the barn would have remained as I found it. Unshot. It’s always better to be lucky than good.

Thanks for dropping by,
Joe Dempsey

All pictures © 2008 Joe Dempsey

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