Once I attended an orchestra concert in Differdange, Luxembourg.  A young lady in our church participated in the evening and I wanted to encourage her.

That episode might have passed into the forgetfulness of a thousand other events of life that you do and move on, but someone that night caught my attention.  My memory is a bit fuzzy, but the fellow who marked me was a drummer who didn’t have much to do.

This fellow looked a bit like a slightly overweight, balding Ian Fleming (you know, the first James Bond guy). In this memory he did mostly nothing for most of the concert, waiting for his big moment. The trumpeters trumpeted, the percussionists percussed, the flutists fluted, and the violinists … did whatever violinists do.

And our friend mostly waited.

I think he may have dinged a triangle or a few inconsequential things, but in my mind I see him next to a big drum (memories are cloudy). Finally, his time came and he banged away on the drum for a few bars like James Bond delivering right crosses to the temple of Dr. No.

Then he went back to doing mostly nothing. Continue reading →