on 2/6/08 8:26 PM, Hendrik Broekman at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Many years ago, on another college station in the supposedly
> civilized northeast, the Abalone Adagio was announced one memorable
> morning.  The lad may have been from the left coast where, I am told,
> they consume such things.
> 
> There is a sign of relatively great antiquity (mid '60s maybe - at
> least it was already there and venerated when I first arrived in
> 1970) hanging in our shop in honor of a delivery man who, having
> evinced some curiosity at the strange goings-on, was shown around and
> given a precis of the craft.  His reaction, captured on the sign,
> sounds like his own version of, "There but for the grace of God, go
> I".  He had said, simply, "It's hard work making harpischords".
> Indeed it is - I have never yet managed the feat knowingly.

In Bill Dowd's Cambridge shop years ago, there was a similar sign stating,
"It's hard to build a harpsichord." Somehow I recall that the aphorism was
attributed to Frank Hubbard; someone else may have a better memory.

Underneath, a customer had written: "Try playing one."

-- 
James R. (Jay) McCarty, MD
Fort Worth, TX

"Sine arte, scientia nihil est"