He had been tuning grand pianos here in Plant City for me for a good long while. I had donated a few instruments to some in need and included with that was my sending someone to tune and regulate them a time or two each year. He was old when I first met him, and to me there was just something appealing about his love of the “good old grands” and his general demeanor about music.
Over time in my amateur hobby of learning about grand piano history, I increased my joy of the instrument by learning how and what piano technicians do. I was always careful not to hover over one when at work and tried my best not to waste their time with questions or interruptions. Yet with this old man, Lee, eventually he showed me a few things and we enjoyed some conversation. Enough at least whereby he learned and appreciated that my enjoyment of a good Steinway Grand was well above that of the average bear. As the years went by, he eventually told me about his days of being a Gospel singer in a few troupes and his time touring and performing. It surprised me to learn he didn’t actually play the piano for those groups but learned the trade of being a tuner/technician later, “after the war” and had been doing it most all of his life since.
Lee was comfortable working alone, likely preferring it. And, like many of his generation who were teens when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 and immediately volunteered for military service, his laconic strength of character resembled a John Wayne-esq cadence. Perhaps it was this, or my focus on the instrument work I was enjoying, I’m not sure, but I do know it was many years into our sporadic relationship before the surprise inside him emerged. I say emerged, but really I felt more like a dentist drawing a stubborn tooth.
I noticed a tattoo on his forearm one day: an unlikely thing for a Baptist gospel singer to have, but very common amongst WWII Navy men. When I asked, was he in the service, “yep” was his reply. When I asked what branch, “Navy” – when, “during the war” – did you see combat, “yep” – he wasn’t angry at my increased probing, but he was not going to volunteer anything and he was not making eye contact. It was like playing 20 questions. We were close enough to where I felt barely comfortable to go for it.
“Come on man, spit it out. What did you do?” Now he looked me in the eye and I waited. Finally, he said how when he came back from the war his father, a WWI veteran, told him how basically that dad knew his son had done and seen some awful things and dad’s advice had been “it’s all behind you now, son. Put it behind you and don’t talk about it, let it go and live your life.” And Lee Kitchens had followed that advice ever since. Now, years later his wife, now dead, and even his children had no knowledge of what he shared with me the next time he came to the house to tune my piano.
With the help of The Plant City History & Photo Archives, it was my honor to help sort out and create a shadow box for him to take back home that among other things featured the following inscription.
–To the left above lies the United States Navy Distinguished Flying Cross. This award was conferred during wartime (when standards for its issuance were greatly elevated) in large part because of a particular mission flown on June 20, 1944. All pilots and crews that sortied were aware the aircraft’s range would not permit a safe return. Despite this grim prospect of a nighttime ditching in the China seas, Torpedo 8 delivered an attack on a Japanese Carrier, a Battleship, and a heavy cruiser. Airman Kitchens was one of a 3-man crew floating in a raft for 12 hours after their Avenger ran out of fuel. Mr. Kitchens (then only 20) recalled his struggle to free himself after the severe ditching, as one of his arms was dislocated and he was already submerged.
—To the right above is one of many Air Medals received by Airman Kitchens for his nearly 60 missions, many occurring after the above-described incident.
Like I’ve encountered more than a few times, here stood a quiet peaceful laconic affable man with grateful customers of his skill and craft utterly unaware of a pivotal moment of heroism and courage in his story. He cried; hell, I cried when I gave him back his log books and Aircraft Carrier Bunker Hill information and presented him with the shadow box. And true to form, he never spoke of it again. A few years later, when I called to get another tuning, his phone was disconnected and searching him out then was not so easy as these days. I assumed he had become too old to work anymore, and I vaguely recall his daughter calling a few more years later to tell me of his then being in a home of elder care.
Folks, Plant City has many of them out there, living amongst us. Next time you see some old codger eating alone at IHOP or in line at the barber shop, put the phone down and strike up a conversation. Good surprises are worth the digging.
Ariel Lee Kitchens 07/07/1923 – 02/23/2015