David is bent over his worktable painting epoxy into the notches of the windchest rails and sliding the ribs inside. Working with epoxy is a race against the clock. He needs to use it before it becomes too viscous.

“Whew. I made it.” He lifts both arms champion-style. David is jubilant today despite a disastrous week. In the excitement of a new tool’s arrival, one of the windchest frames was ruined. When he moved a frame out of the way,  the epoxy, though gelled, was not completely dry. The crosspieces slipped out of place. It was a disaster.

Fortunately, he made five sets of windchest rails for this very purpose. But it was still hard to get over. Then he made another mistake. He was so upset by his previous failure that he put the outer frames of another windchest in upside down and backwards. But it wasn’t a fatal error. “Wait a minute,” he told himself. “Correct the problem and move on.”

David brings out a photo album from the Brombaugh shop years. He’s looking for a visual aid, a photo of a windchest, but gets sidetracked. “Ah, those were the days,” he says, showing a picture of himself and his co-workers sitting around a picnic table.

“There were seven of us total. We were building Opus 35 for Illinois. We spent three years making the components for that organ. Chris was making the windchest. Joe and Sandy were doing case work. Terry and I were upstairs making pipes with Constanze. We’d stand and work at our benches all day, and John would come out of his office occasionally to offer a stinging critique.”

David tells a story about how one day early in his apprenticeship Brombaugh marched over to his workstation and gave him a real dressing down about the work he was doing. Then he went to the guy at the next workbench and gave him a dressing down. And then he did the same to the next guy, making his way downstairs, stopping to do the same at every bench. Without another word, he returned to his office, shut the door and cranked up the organ recording he had been listening to. David came home that day, and after his habitual hour-and-a-half bath proceeded to soak his head in a medicinal glass of wine. When his wife came home he recounted the day’s events and said, “Honey, if I have to be that way to be a great organ builder, how will I ever do it?” And from the kitchen came these words: “Don’t worry my love, you already are that way.”

Like his inability to stay off the topic of the Brombaugh years, David also seems to have a hard time staying away from the old shop. He has a recording of an organ in Holland for Brombaugh, and he wants to show Chris, the shop foreman, the windchest he’s made.

When we pull up, David is listening to Mozart. “Piano Concerto #25, I think,” he says, getting out of his old Volvo station wagon. He’s brought along an antique tool—a long awl with a rounded wooden handle. He thought he’d have something “chatty” to put in Brombaugh’s hand, something for him to look at and hold that he could appreciate.

But nobody is there today. The looming red warehouse is locked up. “This used to be an orchard,” he says, pointing out a bare black walnut tree in an island in the middle of the circular drive. “I took two walnuts from it and planted them, but nothing came of them.”

We walk around back, following a mud-packed trail with leaves and other debris scattered on all sides. “In happier times, this is where we’d have lunch.” A picnic table sits high up on the riverbank, surrounded by cherry trees and blackberry bushes brown and crispy with winter. “We’d see ospreys diving for their lunch and I’d pick blackberries for pies. This was my favorite place,” David says nostalgically. “Especially when John would let us eat our lunch in peace,” he adds.

Back around front, David surveys the property. The truth is he would love to build organs here. All the stuff’s here, but Brombaugh’s here too. If he were to take the place, he’d always be in his master’s shadow. “So you know, move on,” David says, staring at the warehouse. “Forget the baggage. I worked here. Let it go. And don’t be worrying so much about what John’s doing. Just worry about satisfying the next generation of organists. I’ve got lots of pictures and that’s enough of a memory for me. I’m training myself to steer clear of here, but there is this attraction…”

*          *            *