I met Eric Clapton...

A few years ago I was working as a dispatch for a local trucking company in the lower mainland. One morning right out of the blue I get a strange call. This man calls from New York City asking me if I know who Eric Clapton is. I said of course. I began to rattle off all sorts of attributes about Clapton saying that he has played with various bands during the 1960s such as The Yardbirds with Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin and Jeff Beck. A band called Derek and the Dominoes which spawned the hit song "Layla" and he also played in the famous three man power band Cream with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. I told him he went on to have a very distinguished solo career going down as one of the greatest electric guitar players of all-time. The man on the other end of the line says that's great and tells me he has a bizarre proposal for me. He asks if we have any drivers bringing a load out to the Eastern United States in the next few hours. I told him as a matter of fact we do. We have a truck leaving that afternoon going straight through to Philadelphia, PA. It was to take about 44 hours leaving at about 3:00 P.M. Pacific time on this day, a Tuesday, and arrive in Philly on Thursday at about 4:00 P.M. Eastern standard time.

After digesting all that info. the man thinks for a few minutes and says here it is. He says would you be willing to ride with the fellow driving out to Philly and he would pay my flight back. I said it depends if the boss would let me go and for what. He says Eric Clapton's son is attending school in Vancouver and his dad wants to see him for Christmas. He tells me he is a representative for M.T.V. and they want to film the entire trip for a reality show they are planning. They'd quickly script me with some ideas to talk about while we travel to spice things up. He tells me that some of their Vancouver representatives would come down to our office and do up all the legal papers for this event and that if I consented to doing this that Eric would personally call me to make sure everything would be alright.

I agreed to all of this thinking it was probably all a sham and that I'd probably never hear from this guy ever again. So about a half hour later a van marked with MTV logos on it's side pulls up and a guy gets out a walks up to our door. I almost shit myself. I told everyone around the dispatch the phone call I'd received, but we all played it off that is must have been some sort of hoax.

Well, so far it appears to be a true story. The man form the van comes in with all the papers and asks me if I am still willing to pursuit this venture. I said well yeah I guess. He tells me to hold on a second and makes a phone call. He hands the phone over to me and the voice on the other end is that of Eric Clapton. At least he claims he is Eric Clapton and asks me if I am a participant. I said, Yes of course. I talked to my boss and we drew up all the papers. Some more MTV folks showed up at the trucking company and began prepping me for this trip. At about 12:00 PM another car pulls out and out jumps this kid who claims he is Eric Clapton's son. We meet and talk for a few minutes. While we are talking, the MTV people are wiring up the Semi truck with video cameras and microphones.

At about 1:15 PM we pull out of the trucking companies parking lot on our way to Philadelphia.

After a long tiring two day, but really interesting trip with Clapton's son we pull into MTV's Philadelphia's office, get out of the truck and walk inside. Everyone's happy and a few seconds later an older gentleman walks in, lifts his glasses and says "Hi Patrick, I'm Eric." Huh? It is Eric Clapton. in his hand he is carrying a replica of his famous Fender Stratocaster guitar "Blackie." He handed it to me and told me thanks for doing all this, signed this guitar personally for me while a bunch of photographers took pictures. I was handed plane tickets and some other things and told me flight back to Vancouver was to be in about two hours so we had to get going. A few months later the documentary aired on MTV over a few episodes.
Ironically, Clapton's only son died tragically in 1991. I have very vivid dreams.