Reflecting on The Reflections -1

February 28, 2010

More times than not, the World Wide Web sir prize is the hell out of mme. Maybe like yourselves, a group or someone you may or may not know or remember will connect with you after finding you somehow on some kind of web search. Lucky Us.

Whether searching for people with cooking disorders, long lost childhood or High School names who you knew were cool way back when; they connect with wild a banned done. Maybe even an old flame or two, or someone you recognised on the news the day before, featured for eating 2770 slugs in a day, hanging from a ceiling fan will connect too. One never knows from whence they came, went or still are hear.

Even high school friends, acquaintances or the smartest science class student who you sat next to copy answers from and one who you thought for sure would be the reincarnation of Werner von Braun, they’d find you or you’d find them. It’s that easy. Some people have to take that chance because like the Enquirer, they gotta know or they’ll die of a question unanswered when death doo us finally part ways.

Maybe you wanted to see what more they’re doing in life to maybe eventually find out they will be doing life in either a prison or some kind of live-in, marriage or divorced situation where they lost the house, have to support the seven kids and wife left in it while they live in a tent; the latter net connection perhaps thanks to the Starbucks corporation, a stolen i phone or the local grocery stores bulletin bored.

What kind of meet is revealed is determined only when the wait staff come with something you may have ordered or possibly not; one never knows, unless it’s like an open faced sandwich when both you and the sandwich in question face each other before the final countdown when hunger takes over or you sit there and starve.

The net today makes all that possible. Where is so ‘n so anyway? They still owe you thirty seven cents from lunch back in high school and you thought to connect not really hoping for the change but maybe you’re just bored to death with whatever you’re doing in retirement or the third in the series of forty needle point classes.

Or besides the wonderful activities you’re diligently asked to participate by your senior center smiley faces, net searches are what you gravitate towards because alone in your own fish bowl, they take up a good part of your well thought out day.

No matter when or how many times it happens, at least in this guy’s life, it’s mostly been a treat. The past will connect through mmy home page because that may be the first thing that comes up in their search. I’ll usually figure that out because that’s how those things work; the address and forward always and easily recognisable.

This most recent touch from the past was an old high school guy. He appeared as one note in a ascending and descending glissando that comes and goes like an express credenza featured at the end of an unfinished symphony only to either stop because of fainting spells or to leave the stage because of overpowering stage fright brought on by Silence of the Lambs. Maybe as a diver an air tank ran out, wild hiding from one of those too big to ignore, very dangerous and hungry gold fish.

In any case Bobby connected from out of the blue. I’ve not heard hide nor hear of him since high school which seems as a dream and a forever ago. Now, he has sparked those old images of our past only to be refreshed; in this mind anyway.

In his one sentence message, mentioned was a few things just to let mme know how much he knew about mme and to see if in fact I was the real person he thought I was when he found whatever he found wild searching the net. He was right of course otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this little blurb about it, us and reflecting right now.

Mr. Bob wrote that he and another HS bud; one famous Dave, were discussing their past. I guess our old band name came into the conversation and for some reason mmy name came up as swell. I gather from a later and most recent phone conversation with Dave who has connected with more than the initial response that they both are in different states. One north the other south, one thousand miles apart.

As the story goes, in High School, Bob and Dave asked yours truly to be in their band. Actually I think that they didn’t have one yet but they thought if they added a drummer, then they would be well on their way. The rest is not clear. I imagine this is when another guitarist came along; the infamous and mechanically inclined Chuckey B. Another manifestation of the same band came more months later. Gene?

We were the very first mmusical/Rock ‘n Roll version of, ‘The Reflections.’ We also did our first gig before anyone ever knew of the Beatles. Our hair stayed dissimilar is probably why we never became more famous than eggs, toast and hash browns.

At the time I had been studying drumms for about six or seven months. I made sure they knew this but that didn’t seem to make any difference or bother them. They admitted to not being stadium material yet, but thought with mmy help they’d at least be able to play a few high school dances, birthday parties and a picnic or two.

The rehearsals began at Dave’s house I think. His parents seemed to be the ones with the better temperament or maybe it was the biggest living room so don’t quote mme. I don’t remember rehearsing at Bob’s house. Dave reminded mme just the other day that in fact we also rehearsed at mmy house, on our front porch to be exact.

Although I usually practiced mmy drumms to death in the basement I’mm going to go out on a limb here and say that we practiced there too. It was barely finished as I remember still seeing the rafters and subfloor in what would be the ceiling. I also had a few leftover Christmas tree lights strung around the place to give it that festive, sexy atmosphere well before those glass disco balls ever came into vogue.

Dave as I recall was a cool guy. He was the bass player who later on in life especially during rehearsals everyone would emulate because he always stood up to play. He wasn’t that energetic to jumping around when he played but just that he stood helped mme feel that his whole body was into the mmusic and especially mmy beats.

Besides that I admired his genius and inventiveness when being too tall. The basement floor to ceiling height was just over six feet but Dave’s head fit nicely between whatever two rafters he chose to stand in between. Sometimes he’d go from one to the other just to show how really versatile, creative and very funny he was.

This all had to be summertime because although our porch was closed in, it had no heat; neither did the cellar/basement. Winter wouldn’t be very conducive to warm hands or instruments. One place I DO remember rehearsing a lot was at Chuck’s house. Chuck lived in what was then farm country where the cops didn’t roam free.

HIS mom was shall we say, the most congenial and the one single parent who just went nuts over our little but getting longer song lists. She just couldn’t wait for us to finish setting up to play. She always asked mme to hurry up and set up because she just couldn’t stand to wait much longer. We could see her pacing back and forth.

To Be Continued; Tomorrow