HAL SCHRENK AND I - PART II
- Miles Patrick Yohnke
- Apr 7, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: 20 hours ago
By Miles Patrick Yohnke
© 2026 All Rights Reserved.
"Be a fountain, not a drain." - Rex Hudler
On February 22, 2026, Hal Schrenk will be sixty years of age. In this composition I'll speak of one life, Hal Schrenk, with the hope you learn more about him--and in the process learn more about yourself. In 1997, Hal Schrenk lived in the capital of our province of Saskatchewan, Regina. He was a drummer in one of our province's top bands. They came to the city I live in, Saskatoon, roughly every three months. After experiencing Hal Schrenk the first time, I couldn't wait for his return. I'd mark it on the calendar. Have you met anyone like that? Have you had that kind of an experience?
What drew me to Hal Schrenk wasn't just his drumming - and let's stop there. In your field of work do you have that burning desire to be the best? Hal Schrenk bestows that. I was feeling that while listening and watching him. Hal Schrenk was playing regionally, though he was a national and international level drummer and musician. I was so fortunate to hear him in an intimate club. It wasn't just his drumming - it was everything. It started with the presentation that he created. He had his own drum riser. And on it was his beautiful 1929 Chrysler drum kit (serial number 0001) --with a white light that shone through it. Just that alone was heaven. He also used technology. On his left side was a laptop -- set up professionally and artistically -- within arm's reach. Remember this is 1997 when most people still didn't have their own personal computer. And in the laptop - he had programmed samples, beats and loops that played along with the drumbeats he created organically. Have you taken that approach in your line of work? To be original. An original approach. That it didn't exist until you entered your work doors.
When the band got on stage - Hal Schrenk was dressed to the tens. He had the grooming and look of Elvis Presley in the 1950s. Hal Schrenk stood out from the herd in order to be heard. He didn't leave anything to chance. He carefully thought everything out. And it was this acute attention to detail that I marked with his return on the calendar. I wanted all of that to wash over my being again. We're coming on thirty years; though I can still feel the vortex of emotions I had back then - they are as vivid now as they were then.
I became far more fortunate when Hal Schrenk started drumming for my then partner's son. I experienced Hal Schrenk offstage. Hal Schrenk's approach was the same - he was always 'on.' He always was groomed for the occasion; the best. He was always full of zest. He always was thoroughly invested to that very moment in front of us. And nearly thirty years later - not once have I experienced him waver from this five-star principal approach.
Through that time Hal Schrenk has spent so much time developing his craft. Every day he is reaching for the heavens to be more than the day before. He is happy -- and never happy -- with what he has accomplished. There is no finish line in Hal Schrenk's life and nor should there be to our lives. That the race never ends until our Heavenly Father shows us the light -- and we go to our Heavenly Father's lighted stage.
The first beat Hal Schrenk heard was his mother, Shirley's heartbeat. On April 13, 2026, Shirley Schrenk will be eighty-seven years young. People often ask me how I can remember events and birthdays. Well, it's one reason we exist. These people have helped shape our lives--and it would be unwelcomingly rude not to remember them.
Hal Schrenk picked up my dear mother and I (as I don't own a vehicle - I ride a bicycle) and took us to the hospital for her cancer treatment and picked us up after. And when my beloved mother's heart stopped beating at age eighty-seven, Hal Schrenk was at her funeral on that Thursday morning, September 5, 2019.
Here is another example of Hal Schrenk's five-star beating heart. I asked Hal if he could drum for my friends fiftieth surprise birthday party. It was on a Saturday night, his prime night of employment. I told him he wouldn't get paid. And Hal's loving heartbeat was there on that bone chilling minus forty degree night back in February of 2014. He loaded and unloaded his drum kit in those horrific conditions and played the entire evening with his always infectious welcoming approach.
When the COVID-19 pandemic started in March of 2020 -- and the world shutdown -- and Hal Schrenk lost all of his performance engagements, including performing with Jann Arden for her Canadian Music Hall of Fame induction at the JUNO Awards—-a nationally televised moment--and he had no income coming in from his craft as a touring musician he still, in these unpredictable conditions, came by my place and curb sided groceries to me. He made sure my heartbeat was beating happily.
Each and every one of us needs to be acute and to execute all of these essential points that I've outlined to have a proper existence.
You want to be a fountain of hope, a fountain of love, a fountain of serving your fellow human, just like Hal Schrenk. You don't want to be a drain to the world. Hal Schrenk isn't a drain to the world. He is a far-reaching fountain. And dressed cool and styled like Elvis Presley in his 1968 comeback special. At age sixty Hal Schrenk never looked better. Hal Schrenk is the fountain of youth. He shows us more than a stage, but a stage we all need to get to-to be an action figure to our own life.
To read 'Hal Schrenk and I' please click here
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