"God does not deduct from one's allotted time the hours spent listening to street organs"

Two Kansas organ grinders will be in attendance at the McPherson Scottish Festival in Lakeside Park this weekend. I photographed both of them last September 28 during the 2008 festival and it was a visual and auditory treat.



Tom Griffith of Hays brought a vintage street organ with Max the Marionette Monkey. He says the monkey was made for him by a Franz Fischer of Germany, whom Griffith says was once associated with Jim Henson and the Muppets.


Here's a sample:





The organ reads paper rolls, which Griffith has in a wide variety of genres.



Griffith says his street organ rides on a 1898 Studebaker cart. His business card contains the quote I used as a title: "God does not deduct from one's allotted time the hours spent listening to street organs."


And what does Max do? Here you go...just be glad It isn't in 3-D:





The organist in the second half of the video above is Tom McAuley of Hutchinson. Last year he brought his German street organ from the firm of Jager & Brommer. It's a 20-note, three-register organ that plays music from paper rolls.



It features a clown figure that taps his cymbals in time with the music. Fortunately, it does not urinate.