下载

This is Dave Isay, creator of StoryCorps—the project that records the stories of everyday Americans. Storycorps airs each Friday on NPR's morning edition. Support for storycorps comes from ATNT, proudly bringing storycorps listener's America's past, present, and future. The new ATNT, your world delivered.

Welcome to the StoryCorps broadcast, I'm Michael Garofalo, producer here at StoryCorps. In this episode, story from Ron Kroenke, he is a professional piano tuner in Omaha, Nebraska .And here Kroenke remembers one December day when he was called the tuner piano at a nearby nursing home.

A group gathered around in chairs and they were wall wearing their nice Christmas clothing, and I thought wow how nice, you know, they have no idea that I'm going to bore them to sleep with my tune-in. And I'm kind of working along happily, and I'm smiling at people, and a few of them wear a look at me like what the world is he doing? One lady was just glaring at me, another lady was giving me sympathetic looks, her name turned out to be Rose, and then the activity director comes in and says: "ok, everybody, Ms. Jennifer was here and she thought the piano man was tuning the piano, so she'll be back in January. I didn't realize they had a concert schedule that day. About a third of the people looked highly disappointed. And they were murmuring to each other trying to tell each other what had happened. The angry lady barked at me and said "haven't you ever heard if it isn't broke, don't fix it, and she stormed off. I had screwed it over on my seat out the view of Rose because she looked so hurt. And suddenly she touched my arm and it startled me, and I looked, she was very close to me. And she told me very sincerely, "I've been sitting here the whole time and I've been watching what you do and I can tell that you are the kind of person who would never walk away from this piano until everything was just so...That was a moment where someone did just the right thing, just out of the blue, and It did mean something to me.

Ron Kroenke at StoryCorps in Omaha,Nebraska. You can find more stories like this one in the new StoryCorps book—Listening is an acting of love, available now in your local bookstore. Also look for the compaining CD, featuring stories recorded all across the country.

Major support for StoryCorps provided by ATNT and by the corporation for public broadcasting. The StoryCorps archives are housed at the American Folk-life Center at the Library of Congress. Tune in to StoryCorps broadcast Tuesdays on NPR's news and notes, and Fridays on NPR's morning edition.I'm Michael Garofalo, thanks for listening.