Organ Man

I have an organ in my living room. The type that plays music not the type that performs your essential functions. Some might consider playing the musical organ an essential function. I would not. My once prized musical organ has somehow faded from my awareness, slowly transforming from centerpiece of creative activity to simple decor.

I remember the day it arrived. A friend of mine was helping move his Grandmother out of her house and needed someone to have the organ. Unlike other items that accumulate in damp basements across the nation, an organ seems too substantial to simply throw away or donate to Goodwill. Organs also carry sentimental value. Since acquiring the organ, I have heard innumerable memories vaguely recounted from guests about playing or, more often, pretending to play the organ in those wild childhood explorations of grandparent’s storage rooms. Looking up at the towering shelves full of paper holiday decorations and then turning a corner to see this alien desk with 2 or 3 levels of keys, knobs and switches abound, and a group of long slender foot pedals that, if your allowed to plug it in, when stomped, emanate a deep resonating bass drone that makes the thin steel shelves start to vibrate. The organ, at first, seems like a frightening wild bronco, but once you find that its reigns are in your hands, you get a sense of powerful peace like sitting atop a trusted horse.

That day that my organ arrived, it stood there, naked and strange to its surroundings, like a camera carrying tourist in a foreign market. Yet, slowly, over time, boxed were slid behind it and books stacked atop it. Now its become the TV stand and is stared at for hours on end without being played. Think I’ll play it today.