Morning, Friends,

I was thinking about something that happened to a friend of mine, many years ago, and thought I'd relate the story to you, as I'm sure you will all "understand" the sadness that this experience created.

"Back in the day", a fellow drummer and friend of mine, built a nice recording studio in his home. He did a very nice job of it, and even built all his own mixing consoles, as well as his amplifiers. Very ingenius Lad, he! He included in his studio a nice drum booth, where he kept his own drums setup, and ready to use. He also was teaching his five-year-old son how to play drums, and the little fellow was told it was OK to go into the booth and bang away on the drums, whenever he wanted to do so. It was normal for my friend and his wife to hear some sort of percussive cacaphony erupt from that part of the house, anytime their son got the urge to beat on that drumset! Though he couldn't reach the pedals, he could make one hell of a racket on the snare, tom toms and cymbals, after he got up onto the drum throne!!!

My friend used, as his major monitors, a lovely set of JBL 4350's, which he mounted on bricked stands (boxed walls). They were so very lovely, as he had them mounted, that he removed the grills, so that he could have that "complete" JBL experience, anytime he was mixing something down.

Well, as bad fortune would have it, one day when my friend was away from home, his wife heard some odd percussive sounds coming from the recording studio, and went into it to see just what their son was beating on. Her heart fell when she saw that he had taken his Dad's drumsticks and beaten the cones out of all four JBL 15" woofers!!!!!! The 15's were just at the level where he could reach up to them, and to him, they apparently looked like "drums".

After having received an urgent call from his wife, my friend came home early from work, and found out what had been done. He just stood there, looking at his beloved JBL's, and quietly told his wife, "Please take Mikey and leave.... just go out for a coke, or a walk in the park, but I need to be here alone... right now". In the end, all damage was repaired, but not without some cost and tribulation on his part. Mikey was "educated" that the ONLY things on which he could beat, were the drums in that recording booth, and nothing else, and life went on. But, everytime I think of my friend, my heart is a little sad, remembering how completely devastated he was that day, when he came home and saw his wonderful JBL's "destroyed".

What's your own sad JBL story? Thanks for reading mine, and God Bless!

Every Good Wish,
Doc