COFFEE HOUSES AND SHORT-LIVED FAME

I have a confession to make.  I'm a closet drummer.  Yes, secretly, whenever I get the chance, if there is a piece of music with an alluring rhythm, I am compelled to start beating on whatever is close to me.  Actually,  a time long ago I was in a trio with my friends and we would go around to coffee houses singing and playing folk songs.  Naturally, I played the bongos.  I also had a conga drum.  My friends Mike D. and Bill J. played acoustical guitars - Bill played a Gibson 12-string and Mike a Martin 6-string.  


I remember one night we played the second floor of a coffee house in Old Colorado City, between Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. After we sang several songs Mike announced we were going to take a break.  But he immediately announced to the crowd that I would do a drum solo!  Mike and Bill then left the stage and left me there!  The crowd applauded and so I was stuck.  I had to do it.  I sort of engineered an African style rhythm starting slow and gradually, building to a cresendo.  To my amazement, the audience loved it!  And thus, a star was born! (just kidding).  But for a while I had my 60 seconds of fame.  About a year later in the grocery store, a guy came up to me and asked if I was that guy at so and so place that did the drum solo and I said yeah, I was.  He said he was downstairs and they could hear me clear down there!  He went up stairs to see what all the commotion was about and somehow remembered what I looked like.  Nowadays my set of drums is the desk my home computer sits on, but I must admit, I play a MEAN computer desk!