This post is part of a new blog meme brought to us by my funny and talented blog friend Da Goddess, and a blogger who is new to me and seems equally delightful, Mannequin at Fractured Toy. Their meme is called Remember When: Skipping Down Memory Lane, and the idea is to capture bloggers' collective memories, threads of shared experiences.
Monday kicked off the series, and I, of course, missed it, due to being out until 10:30 Monday night, returning home to no internet service, and oh yes, being a LAME-O. So, because I always do things the hard way, I am FINALLY adding my name to Mr. Linky and creating a post inspired by the photo below. Pull up a cushion and a handful of horse tranquilizers and I'll tell you a story.
I was a band geek in grade school and high school. I even logged one semester in college in the concert band, where they broke the Geek-O-Meter with so much I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I humor, that even a life-long band geek like myself was clawing at the door to get away.
In the spring high school bands practice parade marching, and in the fall they perform field shows, during halftimes at football games. As we played the music we counted our steps (eight steps between hash marks -- the five-yard marks on the field) and performed crisp turns. Each marcher had his own instructions according to elaborate diagrams. A big band can create school initials on the field -- USC or UCLA, for instance. Our high school band could have made a comma, maybe.
And so we were shocked to learn that the shape we were collectively to assume on the field, the odd light bulb-shaped lump on the diagram passed out by the band teacher, was actually a boxing glove.
(Photo stolen from these guys)
"Really?" we all thought. "I can't even tell that on the diagram; how are a bunch of surly football fans on the bleachers supposed to divine that?"
"Because we'll be playing the 'Theme from Rocky,' and the glove will move up and down the field in a punching motion," chirped our fearless leader.
"Ri-i-ight," we said. Juniors and seniors quietly altered their spring schedules to include anything -- anything -- other than band. We freshmen and sophomores rolled our eyes but tried to make the best of it. In practices the formation proved to look about as awful as you'd expect.
On the appointed Friday night we faced most of the town of Orland as they sat blinking in the stands. Forward march. Left, right, left, stop, left, right, left, turn. The flop sweat was starting. We lurched upfield -- "Trying hard nowwwwwwww!" -- and downfield -- "Gonna fly nowwwwwwww!" -- and back upfield with none of the grace of a boxer. Looking back on it I'm sure we resembled a blurry potato rolling around on a car floor, or worse, a phallus.
All this while wearing three-piece blue and white wool uniforms with big tall white fur hats. You envy me, I know.
(Photo stolen from these guys)
And where was our band teacher? Making a spectacle of herself. At about six feet tall, she probably didn't need to stand high atop a ladder to be seen by her mortified band. And it makes my story that much better that she wore a purple and green plaid caftan, too short and apparently made of upholstery fabric, with hiking boots.
(Photo stolen from these guys)
Yes, you read that right.
"Getting strong now, wont be long now, getting strong now . . . gonna fly now . . ."
Check out Da Goddess's post for this meme; she was obviously in a far cooler marching unit than I was. And Mannequin's remembrance of drill team was terrific and funny. Go see what they have started.




































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