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Beginning in 1966, I attended William Howard Taft HS which is also located in Norwood Park. Other former Taft grads were Actress Donna Mills, Jerry Krause who was responsible for putting the NBA Champion Bulls Teams together, Terry Kath who was founder of the band "Chicago", and Jim Jacobs, who co-authored the Broadway musical "Grease," which was inspired by his time at Taft High school.

I always knew I wanted to play in a different kind of band. I was always trying to imagine what it would sound like to have rock bands play with an orchestra, include a tight brass section or maybe combine pipe organs and classical music with rock instruments or even have a way to produce weird space sounds with drums and guitar. This was 1964 and few people knew who Robert Moog was much less what a synthesizer did. I certainly did not, but that’s the stuff that filled my mind as I cut grass, washed cars and did all I could to earn my drums. I heard music and sound in my head all the time and it drove me nuts.

We had a terrible snowstorm in January 1967; possibly the worst in history. I was trapped in my home; the TV was broken, my record player was broken and worst of all, my dad was broke too. We did have an A.M. Radio and on one particular night, I heard a drummer named Buddy Rich play Uptight with his band. That was it! That was the main sound I heard in my head and I knew I wanted to be a big band drummer.

When summer came, I again made my annual pilgrimage to Niles to get the latest catalog. As I walked away from the "House that Gene built”, I opened the percussion bible and there was a picture of my new hero. Buddy was wearing the white Nehru jacket proudly staring at a marine pearl set of drums. I fell in love with those drums. I looked at that picture constantly. I knew every part number, size and the price of each item. If I said it once I said it a million times. "God I have to have this set". I probably could have gotten a job as a CPA with all the math I did in figuring out the many ways of getting that set at a lower price. The bottom line was I was broke. Dad was broke and I figured that if I saved at my current rate, I would be able to buy the set by the time I was the ripe old age of 35. Grass cutting 5 lawns every week back then paid maybe four dollars if you were lucky. I was frustrated because all I wanted to do was sit and play. I wanted to make money and help the family.

In my junior year of high school I was dumped by my first girlfriend ever, a pattern that would repeat itself many times, unfortunately, and still does. Now I am a black - belt pessimist. I live by the theory that when things go bad, it is probably a sign that they are going to get worse. That came to me in the way of a phone call from a guy that brought more bad news. He told me about a guy at school that played as good as Buddy Rich and get this: knew Buddy! To make matters worse he even played in Buddy's band and was billed as Buddy Rich's protégé. I hated this guy. He was competition. On top of it, he was nice; polite; dressed well, and was a good student, made excellent looking model cars and had chops. This kid could do anything behind a set of drums and he was 15 years old. Of all the drummers, in all the high schools, in all the countries, in all the world he had to go to mine!

After I realized I was acting like a jerk, I started talking to him and asked him questions. He was a great person and never minded showing me what he knew.

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