When Names Jump Off the Page

I was saddened to learn the other day that my first drum teacher, Brian Bonner, had recently passed away.  Mr. Bonner (as he will always be remembered) took a chance back in 1982 on an 8 year old kid who had recently gotten his first 'real' drum set from Santa Claus.  It was a blue 3-piece with snare drum, mounted tom, little 20" bass drum, and a ride cymbal mount.  I remember riding over to Coyle Music in the Great Western Shopping Center every week for about three years for my 30-minute lessons.  During one of those years Mom and I would stop every week at Lawson's on Demorest Road because my Aunt Dorothy had won a free bag of potato chips every week for a year and, since she didn't drive nor was there a Lawson's nearby her, we were responsible for getting her that bag of chips!

As a young musician - a term I use very loosely given my level of knowledge at the time - Mr. Bonner challenged me to always do my best.  Almost as much as I challenged my parents to NOT want to practice (an irony that would soon shift as I became a better drummer and wanted to play all the time).  We worked through the first two Haskell Harr method books and even started into a drum set book - learning how to read and interpret what was on the page and trying to coordinate my limbs and apply that to the different voices of the set.

What comes next sounds like a 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon' type story.  Mr. Bonner introduced me to my next drum teacher Jeff Long, then a student at OSU, who introduced me to another fellow student Jim Voyles, who succeeded Jeff and was my teacher from 7th to 11th grade, and introduced me to Bob Breithaupt and a student of his named Jim Ed Cobbs both of whom, along with Eric Paton, would become my instructors at Capital University.  In between there, my senior year, was Terry Roe who took Mr. Voyles' place when he left Grove City.

Memories flood back when a name from the past jumps off the page.  Good thoughts of a bygone point in time that will always remain.  I will always remember and thank Mr. Bonner for the chance he took on a young kid with a little blue drum set some 30+ years ago.

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