Though his shop’s not always open, Larry Smith, 86, with white thinning hair but full white beard, can often be seen outside his Gentry Main Street storefront working on pianos. Sometimes, its just a few small parts; and other times, he’s working on the whole case, sound board or keyboard.

Last week, he was sit- ting outside on the city bench, file in hand, fitting new plastic key tops to the wooden keys of a piano he was repairing. The ivory ones were missing, he said.

“I guess they’re running short on elephants,” he added to explain replac- ing ivory tops with plastic ones.

Smith not only repairs pianos; he tunes them for only $65 locally and offers lessons on piano, guitar and violin for $10 a lesson — quite a bargain in today’s economy.

Smith said he has to charge more for piano tun- ing or repair work when he has to travel a ways from Gentry because of the price of gasoline, which he expects will continue to rise.

“Ihearitmaygoup as high as $34 a gallon,” Smith said, “if we have hy- perinflation like they did in Germany.”

Germany suffered from

out-of-control inflation during the 1920s, following World War I.

“I’m a piano tech by trade,” Smith said.

And he said he’s been tuning and repairing pia- nos for about 53 years in Gentry, working both from his home near Flint Creek and also, for the last eight years, from his Main Street location which, he says, is owned by him and the bank.

“I’ve been teaching for about that long, too,” Smith said of his instru- mental lessons.

Smith plays piano, or- gan, violin, guitar, man- dolin, banjo, autoharp, trumpet — and harmonica too. He’s been playing the piano each Sunday for the Methodist Church in West Siloam Springs — one of the few times he’s ever been paid to play, he said.

Smith has lived and worked in Gentry for more than 60 years.

“We moved here [to Gentry] from California in 1946; and if we like it here, we’re going to stay,” Smith said with a grin.

Smith said he spent some time in California after getting out of the service but didn’t like the smog in Los Angeles and didn’t want to stay there long enough to get acclimated to it, so he returned to Gentry and has lived here ever since, inheriting his parents’ place along Flint Creek and hoping to soon buy out the bank’s share of his Main Street building.

Smith’s business, Music Heaven, is located at 245 E. Main Street in Gentry.

His phone number, which only rings at his home, is 736-8312.