Dear Wilton:
Enclosed is
my check ($100) for a lifetime membership
in the NPTA.
My intentions are to beat the odds on
this and
outlive the dues at $15.00 per year!
Time passes
very fast — doesn’t seem so long ago
that I
joined Winter & Co. Over 50 years ago I went to
New York to
meet with Winter sales manager, Paul Fink,
but he had
passed away and John Furlong had taken his
place. John
Gettell had left Musifonic to join Winter and
was
traveling the New England states. I traveled with
John for a
few days after which a deal was made for me
to hit the
road for the company.
Shortly
after signing up and being assigned the
Southwest as
a rep I met Henry Heller, Jr. at New York’s
23rd Street
Kranich & Bach plant. He had the thankless
job of
trying to do something with the Pratt-Read Model
"K" 64 note
"horizontal (using the term loosely) piano".
Winter had
been strongly encouraged by Pratt-Read to
buy these
pianos in order to get more piano actions.
Helmuth
Kranich was theoretically in charge of the
plant. I
believe this was Winters first postwar acquisition,
of many.
Somehow or other Hank converted these
"horizontal
pianos" to vertical masterpieces, then to be
known as
MELODIGRAND!
After being
accepted as a representative of Winter &
Company I
was given several boxes of dealer inquiries, a
large
package of pictures and a stack of price sheets, and
with these
in hand I went off to conquer the Southwest!!
The mighty
Winter sales force started off after WWII
with John
Gettell, Hal Howell and myself. It quickly
grew to
include some really great guys. Never to be forgotten
are men like
Charles (Robby) Robinson, Lyman
Seymour,
Ivar Wernes, Gib DeLong, George Gray (all
now in that
big piano crate in the sky), Wilton Syckes,
Bob Hoyman,
Bob Aurand, Arthur Linter, Clair Housman
and Arnold
Poppenberg and others that made up a
truly
family-style organization.
Early in the
game John Gettell became the sales manager,
but much
more that that, he was our leader, our
friend, our
compatriot & a much loved cohort to all of us.
When I think
of John I think of a lot of the good results
we got from
our sales efforts, but I also think of the true
fun we had
and the great laughs. That certainly became
a large part
of the rewards we received for our efforts.
John and I
were in New Orleans when, after our daily
calls we
toured the New Orleans night life. By the time
we drove
back to the Roosevelt Hotel we were just not in
the mood to
trouble with a parking garage, so we left the
car in the
most convenient parking spot which happened
to be at the
front entrance to the hotel. Guess What! The
next morning
the car was gone. No problem! While we
were having
breakfast served in our room I called the
police to
report my car as being stolen. Sometime later
the police
called to say they had located my car in the
city lock-up
pound. What to do but to profusely complement
them on
their astute ability to recover the car with
dispatch,
and since we didn’t know where this auto retention
area was,
would they please pick us up and drive
us to the
pound to retrieve our vehicle. Two policemen
arrived at
our hotel room to escort us to the location
where the
car was being held. As we were walking out of
the hotel,
John had the temerity to ask the policemen to
please walk
a few steps behind us until we were out of
the hotel so
that people would not mistakenly think we
were under
arrest. I hope the statute of limitations precludes
my having
trouble now with this confession.
Speaking of
New Orleans — John and I decided it
was
necessary to move the Winter franchise from a longstanding
association
with one dealer to a more promising
future of
the line with another dealer. The big problem
was how are
we going to tell the dealer we are going
to make this
move? Through dinner the night before
John came up
with the perfect solution. The next day we
would call
on the dealer — I would tell him of the move,
and then
John would yell — FIRE — and we could run
out of the
store.
Winter & Co.
took over the Hardman Peck Piano
Company, and
in so doing acquired the services of Gene
Schmidt, a
truly delightful individual. As head of
Hardman Peck
& Co., Gene had a suite of offices on the
top floor of
the store at 33 West 57th Street in New York.
Winter moved
their sales offices into the building of
which the
ground floor was a retail piano sales floor, the
man in
charge being a Mr. Blue, a rather boring individual.
Gene, in a
effort to avoid Mr. Blue by entering 33
West 57th,
would enter Sohmer & Co. next door, take the
elevator to
the top floor, go out the window, over the roof
and enter
the window of his own office. Needless to say
this became
great entertainment for all office personnel!
Wilton, in
rambling on here I have brought up nice
memories of
some outstanding friends of the past —
John Parnham
of the Cable Piano Company. Clarence
Ponds and
Dick Stevens of Ivers & Pond. Henry Heller,
Hanks
father, Rod Dunn, and Jack Underwood. Jack
was a truly
funny guy — I told him once that I thought
he was well
worth his keep just to have him around for
the laughs.
His response was that he agreed since he
was paid
less that the cost of a used joke book.
When we all
meet in that great big piano crate in the
sky what a
lot of laughs we’ll have. Best wishes, Wilton.
