Drummers on a Sunday afternoon

The other weekend, after wandering around town on a gorgeous, sunny day, I wound up in Malcolm X Park in Columbia Heights, heard some music and followed it to the Malcolm X drummers.

There were maybe 20 drummers, with all sorts of drums, percussion instruments, one girl with a cowbell, loosely gathered on benches and stools under a tree, jamming together in the sun.

As soon as I sit down on the grass, an old lady who easily could have been 80 walks up and leans down to hand me a flyer for a protest against the Bush administration later in the month. As I'm sitting there enjoying the music, head down, hand tapping on the ground, I hear a horn. I look up and some guy with a small silver trumpet has walked up, and jumped right in. A little while later, a another guy with a flute adds to the horn section next to the trumpet player.

Between passing out flyers to passerby, the old lady is getting down, dancing barefoot in the grass and I think -- I really hope when I'm her age this is what I'm doing. People walk up, or ride up on their bikes, stop and listen for a half hour and then meander off.

According to a guy named William, who’s been coming to the drum circle since 1969, the group started playing at the Park around the time of the King March on Washington in 1963. He tells me the group is a mix of veterans, a few since the beginning, and new players just learning. In recent years, there's been more of a mix of Latin and African beats. And the group leader, the guy in the middle of the circle occasionally giving instructions during breaks, played drums for Gil Scott-Heron for a dozen years.

William warns that the neighborhood is yuppie-fying, to which I am certainly contributing, but believes the culture won’t let it. Let’s hope he’s right. The drumers are out there every Sunday the weather is good from 3-9 pm.