March 26, 2006. I remember spotting this throwaway piano on a sidewalk. I leaned down to try and play something on it, knowing of course that no music could come from it. This keyboard lay on a sidewalk in front of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Astoria.
Throwaway Piano
As I leaned down to try and play silent notes on this discarded instrument I was interrupted by the sounds of the church bells ringing. I looked up and, for the first time, noticed that the front yard of that church served as a single-occupancy burial ground for one Cornelius Rapelye Trafford.
Having walked past this church so many times it surprised me to find that I had never noticed that the cross in the front yard was actually a tombstone. If I thought anything of it all I must have figured it was just a cross, as one might find in front of any church.
Trafford, it turns out, donated the bells to the church. His gift was made under the condition that the bells ring each year on his birthday, which is March 26th. That happened to be the day I heard them.
Looking at this again, and remembering the moment, I wonder if Trafford’s wishes were somehow fulfilled, or if he somehow imagined this tiny scene. He caught me reaching for the remains of a modern, throwaway instrument as the sounds of his 100+ year-old church bells flooded the air.
Trafford
