I will admit that random thoughts cross my mind when I’m in the car.

For example, today I was driving along, listening to my Police: Live album, and one of the songs (I don’t remember which) had a pan flute going in the background. The first thought in my head when I heard that was not “hey, that’s nice and relaxing,” nor was it “wow, that sounds like Men At Work.”

It was: I wonder what ever happened to Zamfir?

I remember being bombarded by Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute advertisements while sitting on the green shag carpet of my grandparents’ house, watching the Magnavox console TV (remember those?) and eating Cheetos. (That was around the same time that Roger Whittaker was huge, and I can still visualize the back-to-back call-this-1-800-number-now commercials.)

My grandmother on my mom’s side was still alive back then and she’d let us pick the pennies out of her change bowl to keep. I can still see her sitting, smoking, at the kitchen table in their old house. Always smoking. That’s actually what did her in, in the end.

Whoa, flashback there.

Anyway, Zamfir. What happened to the guy? Was there just no more demand for pan flute music? Was there ever a demand for pan flute music, or was it this manufactured market that he catered to? Like somehow he convinced these record companies that there’d be this huge run on pan flautists so they’d best snatch him up and make some albums.

By the time I had gotten this far in the thought process, I was at my allergy shot appointment so I dropped it.

If anyone out there ever bought or listened to a Zamfir album, drop me a comment.