3. First Band Practice: Autobiographical, Summer 1985

  

1986 BOA Class 'A' National Championship

Finals Competition Marching Dukes of Marlington

"Here. Just stay between these two kids and... march." 

Mr. Frenz was holding a clipboard and turquoise and white megaphone when he made this simple declaration to me.  He placed me between Matt Garman and Melanie Bricker. Then, very simply, he just walked away.  

I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God..’

Not Just A Marching Band

It was a blistering hot day on the parking lot behind the Marlington High School building on Moulin Ave. outside of Alliance. The azure blue sky was bursting with the sun's hot power and the billowy distant gray clouds were unable to provide respite from the heat.  It was as if the clouds avoided the sun on this day out of fear, and never seemed able to provide a shade that could cool the ground. Being thrown into a group of children and young adults, about one hundred and sixty on this day, was unlike any other experience I had ever had up to that point in my life.  It was a highly controlled cacophony -- a mixture of boisterousness and discipline. I was scared to death, like the kind of fear that makes you shake and sweat and pull within your-self, going so far internally that what is left of you on the outside is not recognizable by people who know you. I had no idea what I was doing, where to go next, or a single note to play. I hadn't seen a single piece of sheet music yet, and about the only thing I could hope to accomplish by being in the marching band practice that day would be not to collide with any of the 180 other bandmembers moving in rapid formations on that concrete parking lot.  Not to mention that my field of vision was now obstructed with a bloated brass mellophone bell. 

To this day I still have dreams about this.  I will awake in a cold sweat, terrified, trying to stay in marching formation while keeping anyone from noticing that I hadn’t memorized any of the music. In some dreams I’m marching around in the wrong uniform, or with no uniform at all. In other dreams I have forgotten my horn, and I’m marching around with my hands up, making all the fingerings. With an invisible horn, I’m emulating proper embouchure while I play with great passion and fraudulence. 

"We don't march like that, come on!" Robin Himebaugh said this to me in an exacerbated, yet sensitive tone. She was my first section leader in band. "You keep your feet closer to the ground -- this is a performance band, not just a marching band. ok?" I remember saying something like 'sure' and I pretended to know what the difference between a performance and marching band was.  

The Beautiful Things

It was here that I first saw the beautiful things, visual forms that I had never noticed before. 

I saw how 180 people can march together in formations making nonsymmetrical designs that you can only fully appreciate from far away -- but there is a beauty in these designs up close too.  Especially thought-provoking when you find that your body is an integral part of this picture, part of this design, part of this visual depiction of musical form. The space between each person, the way that the forms would change and snap apart quickly and reform again, all with-in the context of a musical arrangement -- this was very different than marching in straight lines and keeping your feet in step with others. 

I saw how the light from the sun, the sky, the clouds, would bend around more than a hundred musical instruments filled with sound. That on each instrument, there is a strong point of re-flection, like a flower blossom surrounded by bent rays of sunlight and that each instrument is different -- golden and silver. That the sun plays a different game of refraction with every curve of every line of every instrument that everyone was carrying.  I saw how beautiful the sky looks when reflected back to you from the silver bell of a trumpet, of how it glistens on the golden valves of a mellophone, and how it even reflects on the snow-white face of a snare drumhead.

I saw the fascinating twirl of beautiful flags, waving colors, simultaneously painting the air around us with broad strokes of a mystical silken paint brush as large as a human form.  The color guard, their bodies in the same rhythm, painting these evaporating pictures with how the air would resist against the surface of their sheer thin flags made of satins and silks. The specks of glitter embedded in these flags were like the stars in the night sky but filled with a strong light that never passed away at dawn, but only got stronger as the sun moved higher into the sky.

There was a feminine beauty in the discipline and tension of the rifle line when they would twirl and throw their rifles into the air at the same time -- and the sound of the leather gloves they wore -- how they would slap violently against the wood of those rifles when they came down in unison. They called themselves the ‘Wicked Picket,’ and for good reason – what they did was not just beautiful to watch but dangerous. You had to be a little wicked to do what they did so well. 

You Become a Conduit

The sound is something that you never forget once it gets inside of you.  The concussion of the drums moved through your entire body in a way that connected every cell of your body together with every single beat.  The melody, the harmony, the key changes, the pulse, and sound of this group wasn't something that went into your ears -- it moved through your heart and was carried through your body with your blood. It was as if every platelet of your circulatory system became a conduit through which genius musical compositions would be transmitted from the minds of the composers like Gustav Holst, George Enescu, and Ralph Vaughan Williams a century ago, and into the moment called ‘now’ that we were experiencing together. 

For me, this was unlike any sound I had ever experienced.  There was a depth, a sophistication, a sensitivity, a power in this sound that I can still feel today. Even during a simple practice like on that mid-summer day, far removed from the intense emotional energy of a late autumn national competition; the beauty and love of this music could be felt by anyone there. It was the kind of sound that when you heard it from a distance, you knew that it was something different, something powerful, something that you had to stop for a moment to try and take in. This sound, when it was fully engaged, had external physiological effects to those within it and listening to it.  There were certain measures of music, certain musical phrases that literally caused your skin to bristle with goose pimples. Your breath would quicken, your pulse would feel as if it would skip when this happened. It was the kind of sound that made you feel awk-ward to listen to while seated, you just felt the strange urge to stand out of respect, out of awe, out of simple wonder.  You could hear people, with their body language look at us performing and ask themselves, ‘what is this thing?’ The passage of time has not diminished this feeling of wonder within me. I was part of this, and it changed me forever. 

There was a tall tower next to the parking lot where the directors and some staff would climb up. I spent countless hours over the next three seasons looking up to this platform for direction. The tower appeared to be constructed with an arrangement of telephone poles and pine flooring. From their vantage point above, you could hear them communicating instructions down to leaders on the field over a scratchy, electric, handheld megaphone. 

"A little to the right, further down to the fifty-yard line." Mr. Frenz would say this while motioning to some unknown part of the field behind us.  This would correct some aspect of the formation, and then the practice would continue. 

The smell of the blacktop parking lot surface mixed with the scent of the mouthpiece on my brass horn, and from a distance, I could smell tall standing fields of corn and freshly cut hay.  All of it had a unique 'school' aroma, as if everything in the vicinity of the school building was infused with the scent of construction paper, wooden gym floors, and hallway wax.  This was the Marching Dukes of Marlington practicing formations and marching on the parking lot be-hind Marlington High School in July of 1985. The student body consisted of approximately 750 students in grades 9-12.  The Band program averaged 180 students. And being in the band meant that you didn’t miss practice, you didn’t miss competitions, and you didn’t miss the bus. That meant sometimes you played and practiced hurt, sick, and not when you were in the mood.  But it was an unwritten rule, you were going to be there. The standards of the band were understood and the culture of excellence that we were a part of was self-correcting and self-enforcing.  Another unwritten rule that was understood was that you were going to be taking pledges for washing cars and washing cars.. a lot of cars – and the occasional cow. 

Car Wash

It was probably in that first week of band practice that I was introduced into the concept of the ‘Donation Car Wash.’  It was organized as a one-day event each year from up to five locations in town.  The IGA on South Union, a gas station on Beeson, Marlboro Market, Carnation Mall, and at Marlington High School.   

A gang of band kids would show up with buckets, sponges, garden hoses, towels, brushes, and soap.  Garden hoses would hook up to an outdoor faucet, the spigots got turned on, buckets filled up with heads of foamy soap, and signs would get made for the event.  Cars would pass, see the sign for a ‘Free Car Wash,’ and then they would come.  A swarm of band kids with sponges would soap up the car, rinse it off, give it a quick hand dry – the driver almost always would make a donation into a bucket or two that someone had, and this would go on for a few hours, weather permitting. We could wash a hundred cars in a day with little difficulty at each location for a total of approximately 500 cars.  

But the money wasn’t in the donations for the car wash.  The real funding that came from this project was in the pledges that each bandmember was asked to secure in the weeks leading up to the event.   Each member of band was asked to get one dollar in total pledges for each car.  The average family donation was between 10 and 25 cents per car.  On average, the individual bandmember would get ten pledges of ten cents each from different donors.  One dollar per car, 500 total cars, and 160 bandmembers could generate $80,000 for the day. It was just crazy enough to work.  On average in those years, this one-day event generated between $30,000 and $70,000 annually.  The funds were deposited into individual student accounts held by the school and were used to pay for BOA, St. Petersburg Trips, and for competitions all over the country. 

It wasn’t just cars pulling into the car wash either; a conversion table had to be devised to account for how larger vehicles, and, let’s say, other things were brought into wash. 

 1 Car = 1 car

 1 Pick Up Truck = 1 car

 1 350 Size Truck or Larger = 2 cars

 1 Semi Tractor = 2 cars

 1 Semi Tractor with Trailer = 6 cars

 1 Riding Mower = 1 Car

 1 Farm Tractor= 2 cars

 1 Cow = 2 cars 

Although I never witnessed it, more than one cow was washed in those years at Marlington High School.  Tractor trailers, riding mowers, big trucks, little trucks – anything with wheels and hooves were eligible for our soapy considerations. 

Washing cars was seldom, if ever, just washing cars.   We probably used more water spraying each other than we used on the cars.  Not to mention the epic water balloon fights that were inevitable, implacable, and intrinsically linked to the teenage brain.  The soap and water were used liberally during these fundraisers; I would need a bath like this soon because I was soon wearing a glengarry soaked with urine, and only God knows what else. 

A Band Competition

It was probably in my first days with the band that I began hearing about the upcoming band competition, the last band competition, future band competitions in this state, that state, I was nonplussed, to say the least.  The only thing I knew about marching bands at this point in my life was that they were there at every high school football game and always at the Memorial Day and annual Carnation Festival parade.  The concept of bands meeting together to compete, this was an entirely new concept for me.  It couldn’t have been more than a week or two into my radical immersion into the Marching Dukes of Marlington that I was thrown, ready or not, into my first band competition.  

The first thing I noticed was the multiplicity of buses at a band competition.  Bands bussed in from miles around to participate in these competitions.  I still equate the smell of idling diesel engines with my marching band experience.  Our band usually traveled on four fully loaded and occupied yellow school buses, with another for equipment.  We would depart in the early morning on a Saturday, arrive hours later at some distant stadium, and there would begin my education in marching band competition.  We would offload in a sea of other buses; an average number for a band competition would be 20-30 other bands. It would be a tossing sea of band uniforms of every conceivable style, color, and configuration.  It was a cacophony of sounds, colors, instruments, and artistry. Each band had basically a 10-minute show, generally in four movements.  The music was choreographed with marching formations on a hundred-yard foot-ball field. Each musical phrase had a corresponding formation – it was truly music in motion.  Constant motion.  Big brash musical phrases tended to form straight and bloc-type formations on the field.  Softer musical phrases corresponded to graceful, non-symmetrical formations. 

I understood that judges would evaluate us according to three general categories: Music Execution, Marching Execution, and General Effect.  

In terms of Musical Execution, our numbers always put us in the highest echelons of musicality, even when compared with some of the largest competition bands in the country. 

Our Marching Execution was always a bit behind what we were able to project musically.  We marched a lot of eighth graders and freshman in those years.  This meant, we were marching against other bands, like Rocky Mount from North Carolina, which only put their upperclassmen on the field.  That put us at a physical disadvantage that we were constantly working to over-come.  We usually did.  

When it came to our General Effect category, our music was so good that it pulled our marching along with it.  The artistry of our color guard and rifle lines, the complexity and athleticism of our marching drills and formations, and the synergy of our British-style and Scotts-English musical compositions all contributed to our consistently top-rated general effect category. It would be difficult to overstate the creative influence that the 27th Lancer’s Drum and Bugle Corps, from this era, had on creating the ethos that became the Marching Dukes.  We played from the heart, and we all were willing enlistees in the culture of excellence which was the Marching Dukes of Marlington. 

I learned that the band competition consisted of two stages.  In the first round, every band would perform their show on the field.  A scattering of musical educators wearing green jackets, holding tape recorders, would be on the field as we played, and for the most part, avoided colliding with any of us.  The judges on the field would make their comments about what we were doing, then later transcribe them onto scoring sheets after each performance.  Other judges would do the same, usually from the press box above the field.  After the first round of performances by all the marching bands, everyone would assemble back into the stands of the stadium to hear the results of the competition.  There would always be a beautiful sense of anticipation as the scores would be announced.  For us, getting into the finals had become almost routine no matter where we were performing.  From a competition of approximately thirty bands, perhaps ten would be selected to compete in the Finals competition.  This smaller selection of the top bands would then begin preparations for their show again. 

This is usually where we would break for lunch or dinner served from one of the trailers that followed us in our rag-tag caravans of buses, and band-parent cars, and trucks.  These meals were dominated by an abundance of sloppy joe sandwiches, BBQ ham sandwiches, and the occasional hot dog served on a paper plate by everyone’s favorite band mom, Mrs. Judy Swift.  With a side of chips, a chocolate chip cookie or a pickle wedge, and a can of pop, it was the delectable savory fare of our marching band competitions.  And I loved it. All of it.  

After our break and meals, we would have some light warm-ups, put our uniforms back on, and begin the slow procession back to the stadium that was often illuminated because it was dark by the time of the Finals competition.  

We never took to the field to compete without pausing for a moment in a large circle, placing our instruments down and listening to our band directors Mr. Angeloni and Mr. Frenz, as they would say a few words to prepare us for our competition.  I don’t think what they said was ever extemporaneous.   I had the sense that they had prepared something in advance because what they always said was what we most needed to hear.  You could say they were gifted motivational speakers; they were. But I think that is an understatement in terms of these orations.  Filled with humor, practical advice, and life guidance; what I often heard woven through these talks were both philosophical and metaphysical.  It was a beautiful mixture of Angeloni and Frenz chemistry: parts radical inclusion, musical theory, transcendentalism, woven through il-lustrations from Jonathon Livingston Seagull, influences from Dr. Tim Lautzenhiser’s many clinics with us, and infused with a potent distillation of universalist theology, which seemed to be very basis of our ‘give it away’ philosophy.  At the conclusion of these speeches, we would pick up our instruments, carefully line back up into a marching formation and solemnly, silently, and in unison step by a single snare drum tap cadence through the darkness and into the brilliant stadium lighting.  Our instruments finely tuned, our minds and hearts aligned toward a singular goal: excellence. 

The stands on one side of the stadium were usually filled with parents with their flashing bulbs on their many cameras and various spectators; the opposing side was for the bands that remained to watch to see who would ultimately win.  The top-rated bands performed their shows again to the same judges.  Scores were tallied, the bands would later reassemble on the field in their full uniforms in parade formation.  Our color guard would be in their own parade formation in front of us as we stood in a parade-rest formation on the field.  As specific awards and trophies were given for categories like best color guard, best drum majors, and marching, the color guard would snap to attention and present their colors in unison.  Because we were Marlington, being at these competitions meant we were often taking home, what one band di-rector once said was ‘everything except the lumber in the stands.’ In this bygone era, the stadium stands and trophies were still made primarily of wood. 

Band competition was an all-day, all-music, all-marching, all-band day packed with the most joyful, exhilarating, and suspenseful energy that must be felt to fully understand. Stadiums filled with people, lumbering bus caravans, stadium lighting, and the smells of diesel engines and aromas of a multiplicity of chuck wagon meals, all impregnated the band competition experience with a melodious, cacophony of sublimity.  I got to experience this together with my best friends, a supportive band family, and my girlfriend.  This is what the band competition was like to me.  It was another world, another life, and another powerful object lesson in what radical inclusion could be like. 

   

One or Ten-Second Rule

We were at a show somewhere out there in 1985 in my first weeks in the band.  I was doing the best I could with very little practice and virtually no real experience at such things.  I tried to focus on what I could do well.  At least my uniform, I could wear that well and keep it looking ready for any major competition.  It was either sanity or compassion in the previous year that led someone to decide to doff the large black imitation bearskin shako, also known as ‘the brain ovens,’ and don the much more comfortable tartan glengarry.  We were all assigned a glengarry and you had to have it to complete the uniform.  I assumed that was nonnegotiable.  You just couldn’t lose it, forget it, or not have it.  The last thing I wanted was 180 of my peers looking at me with disdain for not having my glengarry.  So, no matter what, I was going to have it and go to any length conceivable to protect it.  This is where it gets, let’s say, interesting.  

We were preparing to assemble for a Finals performance and nature calls.  So, I must answer it. Finding a portable bathroom is not difficult in the types of parking lots we used outside of college stadiums.  On this afternoon, I found my way to one and approached the door conscientiously to ensure I’m not barging in on anyone.  So far so good.  It's empty, so like every other normal person, I take a deep breath and quickly enter – the idea being that I could take care of business quickly enough not to breath any of the air-cooties or stagnant and quite aromatic fumes emanating from the very well-utilized facility.  

In my haste, I dropped my glengarry directly into the toilet. Plop. Like being shot with lightning and with an adrenaline surge of terror, I wrenched my glengarry out as quickly as I could – but since it required a bit of reaching, it probably took longer than I thought.  Is there a ten-second rule in these situations? Maybe a one-second rule?  Well, between one and ten seconds, I broke every rule of good hygiene that has ever been written.  The stench emanating from my glengarry was indescribable on that hot summer night. But by God, I was not going to lose my glengarry. 

Soon after, we were assembled in parade formation and waiting to go into the stadium.  It was a tradition in those years that friends would hug each other and wish each other luck before we would march into competition. One friend I had came up, gave me a hug and was starting to express her best wishes, when she stopped in mid-sentence, pulled back as the odor of my mephitic head enveloped her.  She turned a greenish shade of pale that I had never seen before, and I think she was on the verge of expelling her last meal.  She smiled sheepishly, walked away and I don’t’ think I ever saw her again.  I wanted to say something like ‘It’s not me you smell, it’s the porta pot I dropped my glengarry into, honest!’  Or ‘that’s not my piss that you smell on my head!’  But I couldn’t think of anything to say that would really help my predicament. 

I only found out later that the equipment bus carried spare glengarries of every size.  

Tartan Whirlwind

I was fourteen years old, when I entered a family of sorts, in these practices, carwashes, performances, competitions, bus trips, and always more practices – a veritable musical whirlwind of activities.  

This wasn't the kind of family I was used to.  A lot of what I had experienced in 'family' was terrifying up to this point in my life.  I lived in terror at home but was soon adopted into this band family, and through this I was given a new life, a new family, a new vision of what life could really be like. 

I had been plucked out of a dark cloud of solitude and confusion and dropped into this awesome thing known as the Marching Dukes. 

In one single day, my first day of band practice, I became surrounded by gifted students, inspirational leaders, positive role models, and this was only the beginning of a three-year odyssey for me. I began wearing a peculiar tartan, the Stewart of Atholl Tartan, it was the centerpiece of our band uniform then.  An appropriate tartan since, little did we know then that our Mr. Frenz, was a direct descendent of Mary Queen of Scots, by his mother’s side.  In time, this tartan became a significant symbol, and in a sense, it became like a prayer shawl to me. It be-came like the swaddling cloth of my young dreams, my hope in the future, and my love. 

I didn't injure myself or others at my first band practice. Within a few weeks I had been able to memorize elements of our performance, some parade and football tunes; I learned to march in such a way as to not get noticed, and very quickly began to catch a glimpse of something beautiful that was about to happen to all of us. 

No matter how many years have entered the gap between today and that day, I am still able to go back there in my heart.  There is a beauty there that I can return to at any time.  Regardless of what dark season I may have passed through in my life since then, when I close my eyes and journey back there, I can still feel the warmth of the sunlight that day, and the beauty in the sound that enveloped me.  I am grateful to God for the love that went into us through this band family of the Marching Dukes of Marlington, and I find myself whispering ‘Oh my God.’

Not Living in The Past

Thinking about this now for me, is not about living in the past. This is about drawing from my past things that were true, and beautiful, and pure, and real -- to help sustain me in the present and future. It’s about going to a place that was beautiful, picking up some of that beauty of the past and carrying it into the present with these words -- and giving it all away. It’s about hoping there are others out there who are willing to take this journey with me and find the joy that we once experienced when the world was before us, new and filled with promise. 

I recognize that many others who were lucky enough to be a part of this with me, may not have experienced it in the same way. 

The best day of every week in band for me was also the worst. In the morning and afternoon, I would be immersed in this warm bright sea of artistry, compassion, and purpose that characterized our band. In the afternoon we would take long bus rides home to get ready for school on Monday. There were a few of us that often needed to find our own way home after shows, practice, and performances because our parents weren’t there for us in that way. When we got home, our homes were often dark at night, cold in ways that you can never warm, with no one waiting up for us to hear about what had happened. In my case, I’d sit in my bedroom alone, feel the comforting fabric of that tartan glengarry, hold one of my medals and have my memories, and for me -- that was enough. My memories and God; I learned at an early age what I most treasured. Those were two things that no one could take away from me. 

To go from my band family, where I was valued and cared for, to my family at home where I was living a life of dark terror -- that was a very difficult shift to navigate emotionally. Sadly, I was the victim of child sex abuse.  My abuser was in my own home.  Home was not a safe place for me to ever be. I had band and that was my ‘safe place.’ I was three years removed from my last incidents of sexual abuse when I first stepped into Marlington High School, however, this isn’t something you forget.  In fact, I found that the harder I tried to forget, the more vivid the memories became.  It is a horrific psychological trap that many never escape from – veritably the worst rock and a hard place to be stuck within. The more you try to forget, the more you remember.  And because I couldn’t deal with this, I buried the trauma of it as far and as deep as I could.  As long as I refused to deal with my pain, I was controlled by it.  It affected my moods, my emotions, and it affected every relationship I had or ever would have.  And hiding that kind of pain takes a lot of energy. The feeling of how isolated this makes you feel is indescribable.  This became my reality for the next thirty years of my life.  

But I also had so much to be thankful for. I had my music, friendships, and always another thing on the calendar relating to being a marching Duke. These things were not imaginary, but real, and powerful, and transformative, and healing. Although carrying a lot of hidden pain, I learned to adapt and accept the things that I could not change -- and to hold on dearly to what good there was in the world around me. I think for some of us, that’s why this experience can be so incredibly intense and important. I’m eternally grateful that God gave me into this band family to experience all of this: the love, the healing, the comradery, the music.  

I wish that, as I write this years later, that what I experienced as a young victim was unusual. Unfortunately, I would be wrong on this account.  Studies conducted by the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that ‘over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. Youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized.’  According to a 2003 National Institute of Justice Report, ‘3 out of 4 adolescents who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well.” One glimmer of hope in all of this tragedy is this: Darkness To Light, a non-profit committed to empowering adults to prevent child abuse, reports that “Identified incidents of child sexual abuse are declining, although there is no clear indication of a cause. The number of identified incidents of child sexual abuse decreased at least 47% from 1993 to 2005-2006.”

If you are reading this and you are a victim of child sex abuse, I want to you to understand that you didn’t do anything wrong.  

You didn’t do anything wrong.  

Please, believe these words.  Read them again. Let this sink in. 

You didn’t do anything wrong.  

You were a child and you needed protection, but this was someone’s failure.  You weren’t protected and someone hurt you.  Those are the facts that we are powerless to now change.   We must accept this and make decisions about how we want our lives to be now. 

I believe that if you can accept that you are not to blame for your own abuse, you can begin a journey of healing.  In time, you will be strong enough to forgive.  And it is in this forgiveness that you will find the freedom to thrive, to love, and to grow beyond your circumstances.  And don’t go it alone – there are people in your life who will listen to you.  There are resources available to help you deal with this trauma.  No one must remain alone in this kind of heartache.  

If you are a young person reading this, and if you are being abused, I want you to know that you do not have to wait, like I did, to get help.  You can act today; I can assure you that the strength you need to conquer this is inside of you now.  I want to encourage you to reach out the Nation-al Sexual Assault Hotline.  Call them at 800-656-4673 (800.656.HOPE).  Or if you can’t talk, connect to their website: https://www.rainn.org/ and select ‘Chat Now.’ The very hardest thing you will ever do is to talk about this for the first time.  I promise that every time after that it will get easier. 

Why God lets bad things happens in this world, I don’t have an answer for this.  But God also let’s beautiful, inspiring, and healing things happen every day – our hearts only need to be open for them. The Marching Dukes of Marlington was that for me: a beauty that inspired, that healed, that carried me through a time when I was in crisis, when I was broken, and when the course of my life could have gone in another terrifying direction.