Some Things In Life ARE Free!

Earlier this year, the home organ that I have been playing for 33 years bit the dust.  I have had it repaired several times in the past, each time it cost well over $400 or more to repair.  This time nothing worked on the organ - no sound, no lights, just a faint hum.   I knew it would be costly.   And I wasn't going to put any more money into it.  So I was unable to play my favorite music anymore.   I feared that I would soon lose all the organ playing skills I ever had.   I still had a piano to play, and of course my accordion, but I did miss playing the organ.  I especially always enjoyed playing Christmas music and hymns on the organ, but I certainly had to put that aside this holiday.
     Well, my husband felt very sorry for me and tried to think about what might be done.  He searched the classified ads and finally found an ad on Craigslist for a free organ!   A give-away!!   It was in Hillsboro ND, a bit of a long drive away, but not too bad.  He rounded up a few guys plus our pastor to help him, and we drove to the home where the organ was located.  We discovered the organ was in the lady's basement and down the hall in a back room!  She had a lovely finished basement, carpeted, so it wasn't too bad.  But maneuvering a 400 lb plus organ through doorways, and up a flight of carpeted stairs was truly a challenge!  We even had to turn the organ on end, sideways, to get through doorways.  Then there was the challenge of getting the organ into our pickup truck, and then the final challenge of getting the organ off the truck and into my house in the living room.   There were a couple steps to go up at my house, but that was it.  With all of us helping, the aid of an appliance dolly and a piano dolly, and the help of the family we were getting the organ from, we finally got the organ loaded!   It was definitely a struggle to get the organ up those carpeted stairs!
     So now this organ is in my living room, and it sounds great and looks great!  Thanks to my husband I can now play my favorite Christmas music and hymns.   And thanks to the generosity of the family to give away this organ for free.   Free is good!   Here is what the freebie looks like:

My new free full size, church style organ!  It is a Baldwin and sounds very nice.   It's also in very good condition.   It's an older organ, but I don't think it was used very much.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of my theatrical Gulbransen organ, but it does have a nice variety of sounds, plus chimes.

I was feeling a little depressed this Christmas because of my own health issues, and family members also going through various troubles and cancer treatments, but getting a new organ to play has helped greatly!  I suppose technically this wasn't "free" because I had to rent a $34 piano dolly and spend half a tank of gas to drive there and back, but this organ was just about 'free'!   And so I say, some things in life really are (more or less) "free"............

Merry Christmas everyone!!