What do you want to be when YOU grow up?

For those that know me well, and that is mostly the family members that read this blog ,would tell you that sales was not my first vocation.
I wanted to be, from the time I was 8, a professional drummer. I got my first drum set at the age of 8, for Christmas. It was a toy set straight out of the Sears catalogue. I understand that my folks didn’t want to make a big investment in a real kit for a kid, not knowing if my commitment would be real.
Well, it was. I beat the crap out of that kit for months on end, till there was nothing left of it. It was not meant to take a real pounding, and back then, I took my drumming inspiration from John Bonham. If you know anything about the long departed drummer for Led Zeppelin, you’ll know that he played HARD. And so did I. In fact, as I continued playing, I gathered a reputation as a hard driving, LOUD drummer.
By the time I hit my early twenties, I was playing drums for a living; it was everything I had worked for. And you know what? I hated it.
Don’t get me wrong ;being on stage every night was joyous. It was everything else that got under my skin.
I did not like living out of a suitcase, travelling to a different town night after night. I detested all the “road food” I ate. You travelling road warriors know what I mean. Still can't eat a French Fry to this day, so scarred am I from that experience.
Mostly though, what bothered me was being in an industry that was built more on dream than reality. Every musician I hung out with or played with seemed to be fooling themselves about the reality of the situation. I realized early into my drumming career, that no matter how good I got, I may never get that big break. Most of the people I knew back then never got it. Some of those guys are still playing today, still hoping and dreaming that they will be discovered.
When I got off the road, I put my kit away, and didn’t pick up a set of sticks for four years. I may never have played again, if it wasn’t for my sister. She bugged me until I finally got out the old kit.I thank her now, because I rediscovered why I started playing in the first place; because I LIKE playing drums. Simple.
Today, 37 years after that Christmas with my first kit, I still play. When we bought the house we now live in, I finished a part of the basement into a music room, and now have 2 kits set up. I play the music I want to play (currently Jazz and Latin music. Very challenging!). - It’s the most fun I have ever had behind the kit.