My mom developed a close relationship with the owners of the music store where she bought sheet music and lesson books for her piano students. At one point, she worked out a deal with them where they placed an electric organ in our house for demonstration purposes. If someone came to our house and ended up buying an organ from the music store, mom would get a commission. I don’t think she sold that many organs, but it was a nice way for us to be able to have an organ in our house before we bought one.
Taking what I had taught myself on the piano, I was able to start playing chords with my left hand on the lower keyboard, the melody with my right hand on the upper keyboard and a bass line on the pedals. The organ became my preferred instrument. I started playing during beauty pageants at school. One of my favorite songs to play was the Theme to Hawaii 5-0 although a don’t remember playing it at any of the pageants. It doesn’t work very well as pageant music.
One place I did play Hawaii 5-0 was at a mall in Memphis. Our family was shopping at this mall around Christmas and a music store had set up a display in the center of the mall to try and sell some new models. I also played some religious music. I drew an audience that included some people from my hometown who thought it was a great ministry for me to play gospel songs at the mall.