A lot of my family members and friends aren’t aware that in a much earlier part of my life, I was a real hep cat.  A musician.  Yeah, smoking.  You might even say, “This is ponderous,” but it really isn’t.

That’s me (see picture below) in Spring 1963 in sixth grade in the front row behind the bass drum at Riverhead High School on eastern Long Island.  Why was I in high school in sixth grade? Because I was so smart? Hardly. I was smart, but not that smart. The reason I was no longer at the Roanoke Avenue Elementary School in Riverhead, where I spent third, fourth, and fifth grades, was that my elementary school was overcrowded, so sixth grade was moved to Riverhead HS. The bigger question was why was I in Riverhead, but the answer to that is my Dad and his brother owned the American Eagle Bakery in Riverhead, a retail and wholesale bakery that I got to work and play in as a kid.

To get in the band, you had to be interviewed by the music teacher, Mr. Hovey, who can be seen in the back row, camera right.  Hovey was one of those persons who could play any instrument and taught all of us what to do.  My brother Len played saxophone, but since he was a year younger than me, he was not in this sixth grade band. Len was in the Riverhead Roanoke Avenue Elementary school band.

Why do I remember Mr. Hovey?  Two things.  He also taught at Riverhead Elementary, where he taught Len how to play his sax, and introduced the word embouchure to Len me when Hovey sent a note home to our Mom that Len had to “improve his embouchure,” and suggested that Len practice more. Mom, a very very sharp woman, explained to us that embouchre was a word that means how musicians place their mouths on wind and brass instruments to get sounds.  Embouchre.  Great word.  Having a mother who knows words turns out to be a big deal. Who knew?

The other Hovey thing I remember is my sixth grade band interview, and if I recall correctly, I was required to be in the band.  “What instrument do you want to play?” I was asked by Hovey.  “Drums,” I answered.  “What type of music do you like?”  I sort of thought that if I said rock ‘n roll, I wouldn’t get into the band, so I responded, “blues.”  Mr. Hovey’s eyes lit up, and he proceeded to play a few bars of something unfamiliar to me.  “Know that song?” he asked.  I didn’t, and responded, “No.”  To which Mr. Hovey responded, “Well, that’s the St. Louis Blues!” I immediately knew two new things … one, that I knew nothing about the blues, and two, don’t profess to like something that you know close to nothing about.

Later on in life it occurred to me that had I told Mr. Hovey that I liked show tunes, and banged out my version of I Enjoy Being A Girl from Flower Drum Song, Hovey’s eyes would certainly not have lit up. Or maybe they would have.

And so my musical career got off on the wrong foot, which is never a good sign for a drummer.

As I look at this photo a lifetime away – and recognize some of the faces and recall certain names – I ask myself, why do I treasure this photo so? The answer I usually come up with is that I can still recall the school, the town (Riverhead, which at the time had a population of 6000), Mr. Hovey, my Mom, my brothers, and wanting to be a good drummer, and the very fact that I kept this photo screams IMPORTANT.

Rod Stewart and Ron Wood wrote the great song, Every Picture Tells A Story, about learning to like yourself, and while I too “couldn’t quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats,” being part of something bigger than yourself, and in this case, my sixth grade band, helped me find out who I was as a twelve year-old. And I learned two things from being in this band. One was that I was a lousy drummer. The other was being a barely competent drummer in a sixth grade band wasn’t the end of the world.