The Circus Drummer and Me

Me and Pete Martin in his basement classroom.

 

My mother always spoke with enthusiasm.  One day I came home from Eastover Elementary and Mom excitedly said, “I have some wonderful news for you! I signed you up for drum lessons today!!”  She said the words drum lessons like someone might say “We are going to Disney World!!”

I was really happy about this news, but I was rarely at that Disney level of excitement like my mother always was. Because my older brother, Tommy, was already a student of the same teacher, my mother had a wealth of fun facts to share about Mr. Martin.  Pete Martin toured the world as a circus drummer for Ringling Brothers. He even took the spotlight as a featured performer playing the marimba with mallets taped to his feet! Mom used her best Central High, letter girl, pep rally voice so effectively while telling me all these details that I might as well have just been told that we were going to Disney World! I was starting to feel her enthusiasm, but I tried to resist giving into it completely. I did not want to be disappointed.

Me, carrying snare drum case to school bus stop.

Mom drove me to my first lesson and walked with me to the back of Mr. Martin’s two-story house. Mom explained that he taught his students in the basement of his home and that he would greet us at the basement door. On the drive over she had been exuberantly describing how terrific Mr. Martin’s basement was. She kept saying, “You are just going to love it!”  Mom said things like that all the time but was not exactly 100% accurate with her predictions.  She told me that I was going to LOVE first grade. That forecast was a flop as soon as my teacher laid me across her lap and spanked me in front of the whole class. On the first day!  My offense? Talking.  So, I wasn’t exactly confidant in Mom’s ability to know what I was going to love. However, this time she was spot on. 

Pete Martin, the 86-year-old retired circus drummer had the coolest basement I had ever seen! I was not disappointed.

When Mr. Martin opened the door for us on that first day, it was immediately clear why my mother loved him so much. He was sparkling with enthusiasm!  He was a member of my mother’s tribe. His broad smile said welcome, before he had spoken a word. When he did speak it was in a sing-song voice loaded with a heavy French accent.  I gazed around at all the crazy decorations, circus posters, and old-fashioned toys that filled his basement classroom as he and my mother were busy one-upping each other with warm greetings and compliments.

I was so mesmerized by all the gadgets and gizmos in the room that I hardly noticed when he said to my mother, “I will just show her around a little bit before we get started with the lesson.” It was the long hair that confused him. It was 1974, after all. This was not the first time an adult had made that mistake.  My mother tried to correct him, but he didn’t hear. He was already showing me his monkey on a unicycle toy that rode across a high wire in his basement.  My mother left us as I watched the monkey clap its cymbals and pedal its way across the basement.   I soon forgot that Pete Martin thought I was a girl as he showed me all his old circus posters and collectables.

He had a magnificent set of wooden marimbas. He demonstrated how he played with two mallets in his left hand and one in his right hand.  Then the magic started. This 86-year-old man began flailing away at a blinding speed with his mallets up and down the instrument. Notes of every color and shape filled the room until there was nothing left but me, the music, and Mr. Martin. Everything else faded away as he brought the marimba to a resounding crescendo! He asked, “Did you like that?” I managed to nod, and he smiled. “Let me show you my drum set that you will be playing. I think you are going to be a very good drummer!” he exclaimed with an enthusiasm that was very familiar to me.  “You are going to love it!” he said.

And I did love it. He was right about that, but sadly wrong about his prediction that I would be a very good drummer.  I had fun and I did learn some tricks on the drums that allow me, even now, to occasionally fake people into thinking I can actually play.  I learned to read music by following the handwritten music cards he had made for the lessons. The songs I remember are ones like “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.”  He referred to this one as a “very pop-a-lar tune” since it was featured in a television commercial for Coca Cola. 

When Mom would come to pick me up, it always seemed too soon.

Mr. Martin was a practical joker and liked to startle the Moms with his favorite contraption. It looked like a rabbit hutch, but inside was a small furry animal barely visible in a little shelter in the hutch.  My mother knew about the trick, but that did not stop Pete Martin from asking us to come over and take a close look. He would lure us in by saying that during his travels around the world he had bought a mongoose to keep as a pet. He showed us an article that described how a mongoose was able to kill a giant python with its extra sharp claws and strong jaws.  He would then encourage us to take a closer look while it was sleeping in its little house. And just when you leaned in, Mr. Martin would step on a lever that sent the cage flying open and the furry mongoose launching at the onlookers!  Of course, it was just a toy, but he was so effective at reeling you in that you could not help but get startled no matter how many times he had pulled the trick on you. My mother would whoop and play up her feigned alarm. And we would all have a good laugh.

And that is how Pete wanted people to leave his magic basement; with a lingering giggle escaping the smile on their faces.

Each time we were on our way out the door, he never failed to say, “She is a very good drummer!” He was wrong on both counts, but I did not care.

I loved Mr. Martin

School Concert, Silk Shirt!