The Harmonica Man... a great story to warm your heart and make you think

Its not often I'm touched by a story. I hope you read about Bahia in my blog a few months ago. She was a little girl that survived the odds while her dad still called her "fragile".


This week I had on CBS Evening News while I was doing something else and the story caught my ear and then my eye. It was about a Harmonica Man. I was first interested because I love the sound of a harmonica. It’s so raw and timeless. The harmonica, to me, symbolizes the heart of men and women- their courage, their strife, their sadness and their triumphs. I can see people playing it on their Appalachia porches with barely little else to their name and I can also see it being played in the best blues and jazz bars in the world. Its one of the greatest instruments- to me at least. I've digressed.

The Harmonica Man had survived at least 5 heart surgeries and was on 15 different daily medications. He lived in an RV. He made the conscious decision one day to stop taking the medication and allow himself to die. Instead of paying for the meds, he bought 300 harmonicas and took them to the local school children to teach them to play. After a couple months, and the realization he was still alive, he decided to buy more. That was several years ago. He has since brought on an assistant, through a generous $5,000 donation by someone who saw him on the news years ago, and now not only teaches them to play the harmonica but other instruments too. He's had a few more heart surgeries along the way but attributes his being alive not to the surgeries or meds (that he opted to forego) but to the children and purpose he created with them.

It’s a great story and I've barely done it justice. Watch it for yourself on CBS Evening News http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5979464n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Think about this story on many levels. Celebrate the Harmonica Man and his bravery and courage to live beyond the odds.

Happy Holidays.