in as ambassador to Namibia in July 1996 and has been living since then in the city of Windhoek.

What is an ambassador's working day like? Shuffling through his calendar, Ward replies, "Well, take next Monday, for example.

"I have an 8 a.m. breakfast meeting with a foreign minister--there's a lot of tension over border issues between Namibia and Botswana. Then I'll meet with the vice president of an American airline to talk about possibly leasing some planes to the airline here.

"Later in the afternoon, there's an inauguration ceremony for a program to train educators. At the end of the day, there's a reception here. But that's just Monday. Every day is different.

"Although this isn't Paris, our embassy is still very busy," he concludes, explaining that a great deal ofhome entertaining is required in a household that is at its heart a symbol of the United States: "It's a little bit of America in Africa," he says.

PIANO MAN

Musical history has its high notes and its low notes.

One of the lowest, says Robert Palmieri '54E (MM), came in 1903, when "several members of the Society of American Piano Manufacturers constructed a 50-foot pile of square pianos and subsequently set them ablaze."

Why? "They wanted to protest falling sales and the financial problems of the industry." Oh.

If anyone knows the footnotes to the piano's 300-year history, fiery and otherwise, it is Palmieri. The editor of the Encyclopedia of the Piano (Garland, 1996) has held a torch for the romantic instrument for most of his life, ever since he first started