Leif and the Antique Pump Organ - 22 months old

Leif's interest in music started when he was tiny. He always loved music, and he loved exploring things. Here was a great opportunity! We were visiting my sister in Alexandria, Virginia in November 1976. These photos were taken the same time as the last set, and also by my sister.

She inherited the old pump organ that used to belong to our mother's cousins, Mabel and Becca. When we were kids, this wonderful old instrument stood on the stair landing at the top of their steep stairs. To play it, we had to lean against a spindle railing, and had it given way, we would have fallen to the first floor. Luckily, it never did. We loved playing the organ, pulling out the stops, pumping the pedals. It was always a special treat to go visit Mabel and Becca and get the play the organ. I have photos or me playing it when I was about seven.

Leif spotted the organ at Lannay's house and, tiny as he was, not quite two years old, he did his darndest to play it. I have to smile, looking at him standing on the pump pedals and holding himself onto the keyboard with his little fingers, barely able to see the keyboard! He was having a great time.

Later, when he was in about third grade, Leif briefly took piano/keyboard lessons at Punahou School in Honolulu, but keyboarding was not his favorite. What he learned to love playing was electric guitar.