Were going to Webster University right?” “Yes, of course”

            As we pull out of the driveway, I can’t stop tapping on my leg. My dad blasting the band chicago doesn’t help at all. While the music was blasting, I couldn’t believe I was going to meet my idol, Danny Seraphine. Once my dad told me the story how he met his idol and he said you have to believe or you won’t ever meet your goal. And my goal for this situation is to meet Danny Seraphine and to se him play drums and to learn how he does it so well.

            As we are driving to Webster University, I ask my dad if he has ever met his idol, he said that when he met Whitey Herzog, he was amazed at how nice he was, my dad shares this story with everyone but I love hearing it. So my dad thought he would never meet Whitey Herzog, but his father told him to believe or you won’t ever meet your goal, so he did and then he met his idol, and I met mine. Too bad my dad met his idol when he was 42 and I met mine when I was 13, but all is fair in love and war so it all evened out.

            As we get closer to the entrance at Webster University, we see people at the door to take our tickets, which is typical, so when we finally enter through the double doors we travel down a long hallway and see two tables set up and they have all of this ligature on Danny Seraphine, so I pick it up and walk through another set of double doors almost tripping because I’m reading about his style of drumming and then … I laid my eyes on the most amazing piece of DW magic I have ever seen. It was an off-white DW, 3000, with 3.4 mega hoop rimming and zildjan A’ custom cymbals. The way it glistened in the light gave me chills. The only thing that could make this any better was if Danny Seraphine was behind it. Then suddenly before my eyes I see him walking towards the drums. “Holy cow” I think to myself. This could possibly be the most exciting moment of my drummer life. Well, as we take our seats, so does he. When all of the clinic participants are seated, he grabs a microphone and says how is everybody doing tonight, and of course we say “great how about you?” so when he picks up the two drum sticks, I get chills once again. And then he puts them down. My chills go away, and he picks the drumsticks up again and starts playing on one of his many DW drum sets. My family and I are in awe. My dad especially is speechless; he turns to me and gives me a knuckle touch as if his dad did with him.

As the clinic goes on, we get more in tune and then we see him starting to slow down then he comes to a halt and talks some more about how he drums and things of that nature. As he is elaborating on the style of “jazz-rock” drumming, I notice that what he is doing is simple in a form of complicity to the extent of practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect, such simple words with such deep meaning. My parents don’t speak drum, so I have to interpret for them. Which I don’t mind, but when they finally understand what he is talking about, they are some what following the discussion. As the clinic goes on, the way he plays those drums is so elegant, in a way that he is a one man symphony. All I wanted to see during the clinic was to see him hit things, but now he is hitting things, playing music, making music and is teaching his style and type of music. My dream is to be some what like him but fulfill my on type and style of drumming.

After the clinic, all of us followed Danny out of the auditorium for autographs and pictures. I was at least 5^th in line and still was in awe from his playing, and also I didn’t know what to say so I let my dad do all of the talking and I just posed and smiled. But my mom hit me so I could say thank you and I did but it came out as th-th-th-thank yyyyouu MMMMrrrrrr. Seraphineee. But after I was walking to the car, I had just thought to myself. “Wow, what the heck just happened” and apparently I said it out lid and my dad said “you believed and you met your goal.”