Three Funerals and a Wedding

Two days after the band meeting in which we decided to find a new drummer, my brother Rev. Bunny graduated from TCU. I rode down to Ft. Worth with my parents and grandparents but ended up riding back home with my brother's friend Randy. As my journal records: "We had a nice chat. He suggested {Big A} as a drummer. He dated {Big A's} sister." That was May 12, 1984.

Rev. Bunny arrived home the next day, and I remember asking him about Big A. "Yeah, he's a good little drummer. I've heard him playing down in their basement." Now Rev. Bunny had been a high school friend of Big A's sister, so the "little" part was more of a memory than a current description, but still it was a positive endorsement.

Now for the complication. As if things weren't going to be complicated enough because of the Toy. I had also been talking to Matus, a new friend of mine and a longtime friend of Big A's, about trying out for the band.

We arranged to hold auditions at the First Presbyterian Church in the very room, as chance would have it, that had been Big A's Kindergarten room. As I remember it, Big A was going to play first, then I would call Matus, who lived close by, and he would come play. I'm pretty sure they were meant to be on the same day- May 19, 1984.

The first song we tried with A was the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and to this day I remember Mookie playing the three-chord guitar intro and A's drums coming in with a shubba-dup shubba-dup bubba-dubba-dubba-dubba on his tri-toms. We only played one other song (lost to history?) when Jimmy Fred invited him to be in the band. I recorded "{Big A} is very, very good" and added with no further comment "{Matus} was going to perform for us, but I guess we've got {Big A}."
Jimmy Fred, seven or eight years our elder, had a lot of influence in the band. He was in a hurry to go somewhere, he liked Big A's drumming, and didn't want to wait around to try out anyone else.

Matus was, understandably, upset and remained so for years. And years.

Still Jimmy Fred's decision was a good one-- not only because Matus left that summer and the next few consecutive summers for music camp in Illinois, but also, as many of you know, Big A is STILL playing drums with what is very arguably just an evolved version of that same band almost 24 years later, and he quickly became a very near and dear friend. We are working on our third decade of shared memories, but the friendship is still fresh.

Alas, the story of the day is not over. From my journal:

At home, as our dog Rommel was causing much confusion by killing a squirrel in the back yard, the Toy came by wearing a tophat and asked to borrow my black shoes for the prom tonight.

Upstairs he asked, "So how long have ya'll been planning to kick me out?"

"About two weeks."

"Who is my replacement?"

"Big A."

"I'll have you know that the one who wants to kick me out the most knows fewer lyrics than I do and isn't there 40% of the time."

"Well." silence "How did you find out?"

"Oh, the rumor is running rampant out at EOC." (where both Toy and J.Fred worked)

"I'm sorry you had to find out like this." silence "We'd like to keep you on singing back ups."

"F--k that!"

"Well."

long, long silence

(Toy, talking about the shoes) "I'll get these back to you Monday."

"Sorry."

Then I went outside and saw my grandfather using a baseball bat to adminster the coup de grace to the mangled squirrel. Afterwards, I took a shovel and buried it.

That night was the prom, which started out well but the ending of which might well qualify as the fourth disaster of the day.

The one bright spot-- getting Big A into the band--- outshone all the other events of the day, the title of this entry notwithstanding, for it was chosen more for its seeming wittiness than for its accuracy.