When I was a kid, The Parade* was a big deal. I was fortunate enough to be able to play in a school band starting in the fifth grade, and it was tough for me to choose between learning the very melodious french horn or playing the drums so I could make other hearts pound with my cadence. I chose percussion, although I later spent a summer trying to learn the horn. (One upperclassman had said I'd get beaten up if I showed up to play drums in the high school band.)
These assorted photos are a little memento of three hours spent standing on the sidewalk with a good friend. Since I like to keep my blog semi-anonymous, the images are jumbled and blurred and tiny. However, in honor of my trombone-playing brothers and *that* high school, I included a photo of the back of their mascot's head in this collage. The rest of the photos are either percussion-related or some other special interest.
There's a little more to the story. My friend had to listen to my rants about how they've changed the parade route (no more waiting for the train crossing), no shoes could be worse for your feet than discount-chain deck shoes, no uniform could be uglier than my band's, and no drums these days are as heavy and ungainly as those I carried. And it was uphill both ways, in the snow, in 90-degree weather, with lots of reminders that there were mounted units ahead of us. That's how it was, back in the day.
*Actually, there are four parades in this neck of the woods. All on the same day, all celebrating the gloriousness of daffodils and the joys of a capitalist economy.
And now for a P.S.
The photo collage that looked so good on my screen was apparently too good to load, so it had to be replaced with a few individual shots. Those shots were hand-pasted into the text, taking much time and effort because they kept covering bits of said text. Argh! Since I'm doing this postscript, I'd like to add that my favorite band uniforms are shown in the last drum line photo. The school's mascot is a logger, and the band gets to wear tan Carhartts, work shirts, and orange suspenders! Too cool for words!
4 comments:
Hee hee, I marched in my band in school at the same parades. Oh the memories!
Yay, Erin! And what fantabulous instrument did you play? Eh? Was it part of the most important section of the whole band? Yes? Yippee! Those were fun times.
Yes, I see that even THESE photos aren't loading properly. Ugh! I don't have time to monkey with them now -- I might have to do actual research to determine the cause of this difficulty.
Or, since Polo wants to "learn the computer", maybe I'll just leave it logged on when I go to work. By the time I get home, he'll have a whole new blog going... Oh... bad idea...
I played the clarinet. There were a few times I played the bass drum. That was fun!
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