Bongos sound great. I love the evocative tone, which is a bit exotic, even dangerous. Bongos and congas and timbales get you up and moving. Sheila E.! I mean, c’mon.

But. (There’s always a “but”, n’est-ce pas?) In my early days, getting bongos was code for a sad second choice. See, when I was a kid in the Bronxy part of the Bronx, we lived in a rent-controlled apartment with a pain in the ass super and pain in the ass neighbors. And, alas, we lived paycheck to paycheck. No money for cool stuff.

I wanted to play a musical instrument. First choice: PIANO!!!! Oh please please please??? NO!!!

I want to play drums. Oh please please please please??? NO!!! Just a snare drum??? NO!!!

So I thumbed through the Lafayette catalog’s musical instruments section and picked out a snare and cymbal set and showed it to my dad. NO!!!

But. (There’s always a “but”.) One day he came home with a package and handed it to me. Open it up, it’s for you, he said. It’s bongos. Tunable bongos.

Well I loved bongos, and howled when I heard them used on various Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

But jeez, I really wanted to learn a musical instrument and thought I’d really be good at it.

Fast forward to 2001. I’m making some money, finally. It’s summer. I pass the newsstand on Brooklyn’s Seventh Avenue and Union Street. There’s a take-one flier for guitar lessons. First lesson, in your home, free. I call. I start. I learn. It kept me sane in those horrible months after 9/11. My boxer (doggie) would lie on my bed as I strummed chords to “Flying Shoes”, the song that most matched my mood.

But still no piano.

After 25 years in Brooklyn, we moved to a part of the Bronx my parents made fun of when I was a kid. They made fun of it because they could never in a million years afford it.

I met a guy who was a BFD at Juilliard. Just for shits and giggles, one day I asked him if he knew anyone willing to teach an old dog like me some new tricks. That is, teach me how to play piano.

Turns out, he sure did. His prize doctoral student. My wife got me a Yamaha 88-key electronic piano. Every week for two years, I met him at the school and he signed me in and I learned theory and scales and flips and sight-reading on Hamburg-build Steinway grand pianos.

I was a kid in the proverbial candy store. That is, until the school went into lockdown. Undaunted, we continued lessons on FaceTime. We continue to this very day.

But the keyboard wasn’t an acoustic piano. It was good. It served the purpose. But it was bongo-adjacent.

Fast forward to this very day. My research was complete. I road tested a bunch of pianos. Made of spruce, mahogany, steel, brass. I made a decision.

This bad boy is coming to my home in the weeks ahead. It took a long time. But it happened. No more sad second choices, not at this stage of life. Oh please please please, I begged myself when I reasoned that it was too expensive, too big, too this, too that.

OK, I told my inner little kid. OK, you can have it. And after many decades, I gave myself permission to birth my dream.