Pied Piper Cheats Death

By Miss Cellania in Health, Music on May 1, 2009 at 9:24 pm

Andy Mackie of Washington state had undergone nine heart operations and was taking 15 different drugs when he decided to quit. He gave up the medicine and started using the money he saved to give away harmonicas and music lessons to local kids. Mackie figured it would be a gift before he died.

“I really thought it was the last thing I could ever do,” he says.

And when he didn’t die the next month, he bought a few hundred more.

Harmonicas in hand, he explains, “I just started going from school to school.”

It’s now 11 years and 13,000 harmonicas later.

The now 70-year-old Mackie also makes and buys other musical instruments for interested children, and arranges for his older students to give lessons to younger kids.

Mackie says, “I tell them music is a gift, you give it away – you give it away and you get to keep it forever.”

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(image credit: CBS)

Tags: harmonica, musical instruments

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Jill
May 1st, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Great story !!! Thanks. This sort of thing is what keeps the world going.

Jill
Frau
May 1st, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Fantastic.
I wish there were more people like this.
Well not at deaths door part, but more people that put their money to the “arts” for children.
Silencer
May 2nd, 2009 at 6:49 am
this is really moving, thats the direction we chould be heading to, awesome!
Carl
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:19 am
Oh my. Wow. That’s amazing! What a blessed soul.
catlady
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 am
That story made me want to cry.

Oh, right. PMS.
Noelegy
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:42 am
I heard on the radio yesterday about a guy in New Orleans, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, but who started a marching band organization called Roots of Music, focusing on getting at-risk kids off the streets and doing something positive. The band has 70 members, but a waiting list of 400. All of the instruments are donated. The guy was being interviewed on the radio, and he says he wishes he could have places for everyone, but the funding just isn’t there. He said he has one 7-year-old who calls him every day, wanting to be in the band. He also said that before they get to play, they have to hit the books and keep their grades up. It was a really positive and moving story, which is why this story made me think of it.
Kalel
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Wonderful story, really.

Although the thought of thirteen thousand children with harmonicas did give me the creeping horrors for a moment.
Woogie
May 2nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
It’s hardly cheating death.

And I’d almost guarantee that he WOULD be dead now if he’d stayed on the meds from the inevitable toxicity 15 different medications would cause.

Yet more proof Doctor’s and Pharmaceutical companies are not the all knowing gods people seem to think they are.

A truly great story. What a wonderful man!

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