Hokay, ze organ, she ’ave, ’ow you say, arrived at my ’ome.

An’, eef I do say so myself, she is, ’ow you say, lookin’ good.

She no sound too shabby either.

I am on a natural high today. I ’ave no need of, ’ow you say, illicit drugs or artificial stimulants of any kind.

I’m having an organ transplant

...and I’m really excited about it.

In my case, this is the organ:

...and it’s being transplanted from Milton, Georgia, to our digs in Canton, Georgia, a distance of fourteen miles.

Did I mention that it’s free?

I kid you not.

Actually, this is not the specific instrument -- this photograph was taken by a man named Jeff Schuler in, I presume, the privacy of his own home and uploaded to Flickr several years ago -- but it is the same model, I think, as the one we will be getting.

My new old friends, Ashley N. and Jesse M., an engaged couple, were first-time visitors to the church this past Sunday and we happened to sit at the same table in the fellowship hall during the monthly covered-dish lunch following the church service [Editor’s note. First-time visitors to our church are not required to bring covered-dish lunches with them. There was more than enough food for our visitors. --RWP]. As we got acquainted, Ashley suddenly asked, “Do you know anyone who wants an organ? It’s free.”

And the rest is, if not quite history yet, now in the works. Mrs. RWP and I went to see and listen to the instrument Monday afternoon, and we liked it. So, voila!, as they say in Paree, ze organ, she ees ours.

Now all we have to do is find someone who will move it from its current home to its new home for something less than an arm and a leg.

And until it is safely ensconced in its new home, I must continue to remind myself not to count, ’ow you say, ze chickens before zey are ’atched.

Photo by Kim Pardi, 2005, on flickr, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

From the archives (November 1, 2010): When October goes

Barry Manilow has never been my favorite singer, and I have heard him when he was in better voice, but there’s something about this particular clip that reaches way down inside me and turns me inside out.

When October Goes (4:50)

I get the almost-a-cliché metaphor about a person’s lifespan (“Oh, it’s a long, long time from May to December, and the days grow short when you reach September” and so forth), and the leaves have turned red and gold and many of them have already fallen, and flocks of geese are in the air making their way south, and my mother died in the month of October in 1957, so this time of year always makes me a bit melancholy, but still...Barry Manilow?

There’s a little quiver in his voice -- and, yes, it may even be fabricated for effect -- and he’s a little “pitchy” (translation: out of tune) in places, but when he sings this song he somehow seems on the verge of losing his composure altogether. Maybe that’s what I’m responding to viscerally, I don’t know, the fact that we’re all in this thing together and we’re all putting on some sort of act and we’re all always dangerously close to losing control and letting everybody see how we really feel, and we certainly wouldn’t want to let that happen. Would we?

But still...

Barry Manilow?

No comment

Our Neighborhood Watch Captain, Bob Anderson, forwarded the following e-mail to every homeowner in our subdivision today.

Advisory: Cherokee Sheriff's Office Warns of Thefts From Vehicles

The Cherokee Sheriff’s Office is urging citizens not to leave valuables, specifically purses, in their vehicles while parked in public parking places. On Monday there were five separate incidents in which suspects broke the window out of parked cars and took purses from inside the vehicle. Four of the locations were pre-schools and one was at a Veterinarian’s office. Four of the locations were in Cherokee County and one was within the city limits of Holly Springs. Hickory Flat United Methodist Church, Mt. Zion Church, The Goddard School, Bridgemill Veterinary, and Primrose daycare were the locations of the thefts.

Investigators believe the same suspects are responsible for all the thefts. It is also believed the suspect is able to break the window, steal the items and leave the area within a matter of seconds. We currently have no description of the suspects but it is believed they are driving a silver four-door passenger car [emphasis mine]. Anyone who has any information about these incidents or sees something or someone suspicious in these types of locations are urged to call 911.

Lt. [name withheld]
Cherokee Sheriff’s Office

[Editor’s note. Okay, I’ll comment anyway. There must be ten thousand silver four-door passenger cars in Cherokee County, but somehow I feel guilty by association. We pass two of these places every time we go to the grocery store. I just know that strangers will now be peering into our windows to see whether we are the culprits. Oh, for the days when we could just drive down the road and enjoy the scenery.--RWP]

[Editor’s note 2. I also must comment about the fact that Lt. [name withheld so that Yorkshire Pudding doesn’t get any crazy ideas] says “Anyone are urged....” --RWP]

Photo of the day

Christening of Prince Charles* at Buckingham Palace, London, 1948.

Back row, left to right: Lady Brabourne, Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Philip), His Majesty George VI, Honourable David-Bowes Lyon (maternal uncle of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret), Earl of Athlone (brother of Queen Mary and spouse of Princess Alice), Princess Margaret (sister of Princess Elizabeth).

Front row, left to right: Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven (mother of Lord Louis Mountbatten), Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II), Prince Charles, Her Majesty Queen Mary (mother of George VI, great-grandmother of Prince Charles).

Notably absent from this photo is the wife of King George VI, Queen Elizabeth (the former Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and maternal grandmother of Prince Charles).

*full name: Prince Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor-Mountbatten (1948- )

You were expecting maybe a different photo?

Carry me back to Plano, Texas

...dat’s whar de cotton an’ de corn an’ taters grow.

No, wait, that was Old Virginny.

Speaking of old, my stepbrother and his wife drove into town from Texas one day last week. It was the first time we have seen each other in eight years. They had decided to take an autumn vacation and drive around the southeastern U.S. for a few weeks and we were their first stop. Well, their second, really, because they spent their first night in Meridian, Mississippi.

On Friday, as much of the family as we could get together on short notice went out for dinner at a very nice restaurant in Kennesaw.

On Saturday, we went up to Big Canoe in the mountains to spend some time with my oldest son’s family. We went to a place called Burt’s Pumpkin Patch in Dawsonville where people were pushing around wheelbarrows full of pumpkins and gourds and Indian corn and butternut squash and acorn squash and lots of other things. We also went to Amicalola Falls, the highest waterfall in Georgia at 729 feet (222 m). We had planned a picnic and a trip to some apple orchards in Ellijay as well, but Mother Nature decided to give our area some much-needed rain, so we cut short the gadding about and returned to Big Canoe for the afternoon.

On Sunday, our visitors departed for their next stop, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. They also plan to visit North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park/Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway before heading across Kentucky and Tennessee back to good old Big D.

Here is part of Amicalola Falls:

and here is part of Burt’s Pumpkin Patch:

I hope it is not another eight years until we see them again.

Until then, we’ll just have to be satisfied with singing “Big D, Little a, Double L, A, S” along with Carol Burnett and Julie Andrews at Carnegie Hall (5:45)

I couldn’t be in church today

...so I worshiped with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir in the privacy of my own home.

Thou, O Lord, Are a Shield For Me (5:37)

Song of Moses (7:39)

Worthy Is the Lamb (5:39)

It sure felt like being in church to me.