I cannot recall anything I said or did that would cause my parents to think I wanted a Magnus electric chord organ.

Yet there it was, next to the Christmas tree, fully assembled, with my name on the gift tag. Brand new and with a bench.

All mine.

I had an ear for music, like everyone else in my family. But playing a keyboard?

Did a teacher mention something to my parents? There were pianos in classrooms back when I went to school. Maybe I had hopped up and tried to play the instrument, and a teacher caught something in my eye that she recognized.

It is a mystery. My parents didn’t have money to buy a luxury like an electric organ. Yet, somehow it came to be: a musical instrument that wasn’t a loaner I had to give back at the end of the school year.

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