#31 - Drum Lessons

If there are any "failures" among my 40 new adventures, this would be listed among them. However, I didn't get into this "new adventures" business to beat myself up, so I'm not going to look at it as a failure, rather an adventure for which I just wasn't cut out to succeed.

I LOVE music.  My world would be incomplete without it.  I'm amazed at the power of music and lyrics. They can move us to tears or bring a warmth to our heart and smile to our face. I am constantly in awe of how songwriters never seem to run out of new songs to write. How can that be? How can anyone even write a song in the first place?  The idea of actually creating a song out of nothing is as inconceivable to me as is the idea of deriving the quadratic equation to some of my math students! (OK, to ALL of my math students.) 

Having said all of that, I was blessed with absolutely no musical ability whatsoever. None. Zilch.  My parents had me take guitar lessons as a child for several years, and it was a total waste of their money. I am as tone deaf as Helen Keller.  In my several years of guitar lessons, I was never actually able to tune my own guitar. That task was always left to my instructor.  I simply don't have the musical-ability gene anywhere in my body.

I think that's why drums have always seemed so appealing to me. No tone, no pitch. Just rhythm. I was pretty confident I could handle that.  So, early in my "40 new adventures year", I began taking drum lessons from a very patient, generous co-worker, Ben.  For the first few weeks I was pretty optimistic. Ben taught me a simple pattern, and I found myself playing "air drum" at every stoplight as I drove my daily mom's taxi routine. My goal was simple: I wanted to get good enough at drums to play a single song during the worship portion of our weekly chapel services at school. Ben agreed that it seemed doable. I was even optimistic enough that I purchased a set of drums off Craigslist, as "air drums" just didn't cut it for practice.  That's pretty much when my bubble burst.

Ben said, "Great, I'll come by your house and tune them for you."  WHAT?!?!  Tune my drums?!?!? Are you serious?!?! I wanted to cry. Yep, drums must be tuned. Who knew? Of course, that blow was quickly accompanied by ever-increasingly complex patterns that involved hand-foot coordination of which I simply seemed incapable.  The nail in the coffin came when Ben and I agreed to take June off from lessons, due to some mutual schedule conflicts. He told me to practice and get back in touch with him in July.  Well, those drums simply didn't call out to me AT ALL during summer break.  I truly believe that if someone has a passion for something, you simply can't keep that person away from that passion.  I obviously didn't have a passion for drums. The drum set served two purposes this summer: 1. collect dust, and 2. entertain the 2 year old foster boy who lived with us (who, by the way, had far more natural talent on the drums than I did).  So, when the school year resumed, I confessed to Ben that I was throwing in the towel on the idea of playing a song with the worship band. I told him I was grateful for the lessons and new experience, but that drum-playing simply didn't seem to be my calling. He was quite understanding.

Failure? Maybe. But, at least I DO now know what a hi hat, a crash symbol, and floor tom are. And I have seen what drum music looks like. So, this was not a true failure. I did have a new experience, and I enjoyed it for the most part.  It reaffirmed that music is not an area in which I'm gifted, and that's OK.  By the way, if anyone is in the market for a decent (and recently tuned) set of drums, I know where you can get a good deal on one (seriously)!

#30 - Bass Pro Shop

You are probably saying to yourself, "Really? A trip to a store counts as a new adventure??"  Well, there's some history behind this adventure -- and if you haven't ever been to a Bass Pro Shop, it really IS an adventure. 

The history goes back maybe 5-7 years ago.  My friend who lives in Orlando, extertainment capitol of the USA, bought a timeshare near Branson, MO.  My parents, when they were newly empty-nesters, traveled to Branson several times. They loved the shows and musicians.  It seemed to me the Branson crowd was largely 50+ in years, and I couldn't see what about that would attract my 30-something friend to want to vacation there every year.  When she said one of the reasons they chose Branson was because it was near a Bass Pro Shop and that her husband, an avid fisherman, loved those stores, I thought  "Hmmm, a store that could actually influence the decision to purchase a timeshare?!?!? This must be some store!" I decided right then that sometime I would have to check out one of these stores.

Since then I have driven by many Bass Pro shops as we have criss-crossed the country on various road trips. During our massive "Great American Cox Family Minus One Road Trip" of 2008, when Craig was deployed, our travels took me and the kids past numerous Bass Pro Shops. Each time I would say,  "We should stop and check it out, but we don't really have the time."  In hindsight I'm not sure if we really were that pressed for time, or if I simply wanted to get where we were going.  When you're several hours into a long drive, the idea of delaying the arrival time just isn't appealing.

I decided that one day we would simply have to make the time during a road trip, because we didn't have any Bass Pro Shops anywhere near us in Colorado. Then, almost two years ago, when Josh and I were hanging out in one of his favorite locations - the local emergency room - we somehow got on the topic of Bass Pro Shops.  One of the people stitching Josh up informed me that we had one just up the road in Denver!  Boy, did I feel stupid!  It was just enough off our normal beaten path in the Denver area that I did not know about its existence.  Still, since that epiphany nearly two years ago, I have never taken the time to go check it out.

So, when a completely different new adventure got postponed due to schedule conflicts a couple days ago, I decided that the day wouldn't be a waste, and I would finally go check out this mystical Bass Pro Shop.  The kids and I piled in the van on a beautiful fall day and made the short 1 hour drive to Denver.

Did you check out the picture at the top of this post?  HUGE doesn't do this store justice.  Upon arriving I could only imagine what was inside.  Then we entered. This was not a store. It was a Disney attraction - a small scale theme park - an outdoor adventure under a roof!  Wow!  I don't know where to begin. The sheer size was mind-boggling. It is over 4 acres large!  But more than that, the abundance of more things than you possibly take in was overwhelming.   There were more animals (albeit dead and stuffed) in this store than in all of Pike National Forest.  Trees towered over us.  Mannequin rock climbers scaled the walls around us, There was a huge fish tank sporting all kids of big fish that I'm sure fisherman would love to catch, but whose names I have no idea about because I'm not a fisherman!  There was a shooting range which captured the boys' attention for quite some time (and the pictures of which were lost when my cell phone died).  There was a classroom for various trainings they hold. There were departments ranging from food to housewares to clothing to camping supplies to boats to guns to ice fishing huts to just about anything possibly related to the great outdoors.  There was a sit-down restaurant and a Starbucks. For the season there was a Santa's wonderland. There was simply so much under one roof that the capital required to open one of these stores absolutely blows my mind.  It makes WalMart look like a hole-in-the-wall variety store.

While I'm not one at all to rush the Christmas season, I'm willing to give Bass Pro shops a little slack. It probably takes them a full month to complete their decorations, and they are well underway already. Santa's Wonderland was still in process, but much of the rest of the store was already decorated for Christmas. And, they won bigtime bonus points from me because during our hour spent in the store, they played BOTH Bing Crosby and Burl Ives!  To me it simply isn't Christmas without those two, and my family has learned that they WILL be subjected to hours of Bing and Burl each Christmas, so they barely even put up a protest anymore; they just roll their eyes.

It was a really fun new adventure. The kids, especially the boys, agreed they were glad they decided to come with me.  They're already saying we need to make another trip up there shortly to show dad.  If you are ever driving cross country and see a Bass Pro Shop, make the time to go check it out. Stretch your legs for a half hour or so, and you will definitely be wowed!