Published Wednesday, September 08, 2010 2:26 PM
Updated Wednesday, September 08, 2010 2:26 PM
Not me. I was the classic Band-O geek and proud of it. Four years in marching band, three summers at band camp. True, we had the requisite stereotype square pegs but our school band was full of rebels – intelligent, creative rebels. True, most of had bad 80s hair and worse sartorial sense, but we were more than capable of raising Cain and keeping him well propped up wherever we went.
And band camp? Well, let’s just say if you never did your time there, you really won’t get why the girl in the movie “American Pie” was so funny on so many levels.
For me, it would be a valuable lesson in not judging books by their covers.
I’ll never forget this one guy, a truly subtle and hilarious cat who was constantly cracking us up while sending our band director up walls. He was never crude or disrespectful, just edgy to the point of impudence. His inspiration to turn a sousaphone upside down and play it like a French Horn on steroids was truly inspired, especially when he nailed the lower registers -- causing drum snares to buzz like a rattlesnake convention. He would also croak out ridiculous camp songs through the horn, making it sound like Zool the Zoroastrian Demon was rapping “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah” in the back of the band room.
I know, it sounds silly, but you had to be there – it still cracks me up thinking about it.
I, too, was a tuba player. This was especially hilarious because at the time, I was about 5’3” 105 pounds complete with broomstick arms, sand piper legs and a chest like a house finch. These days, most tuba players use those drum corps style shoulder bugles -- far lighter and more versatile for marching bands. But back then, I was playing one of those giant white fiberglass Sousaphones. Picture an albino anaconda mating with a radar dish while trying to strangle a skinny, beak-nosed kid in a red uniform, and you get the picture. When a tuba is played badly – and I played it pretty badly -- it sounds like the distressed bugling of a badly constipated bull moose. To add insult to injury, on windy days, the horn would act a lot like a parasail, blowing me helplessly all over the field.
But it did have its advantages. I was so small that during breaks on those blazing hot August days, I could literally crawl into the bell and take a nap. On road trips and at football games, I could hide all manner of contraband in it. The patterns we had to march were probably the easiest in the whole band. We sort of drifted in the background, somewhere between the percussion section and the flag line, never doing more than a giant Arthur Murray box step the whole half-time show.
Best of all, our flag line was made up of some of the hottest girls in school, and they always seemed to be right in my field of vision, twirling flags, lifting skirts, doing head stands, and otherwise turning me into a 5’3” 105-pound raging hormone storm.
Run back a kick-off for the winning touchdown? Sounds glorious, but let me revel in my own fond memories.
The fact is, too, that if I were hard pressed, I could still play a tuba or a saxophone.
Could you still return a punt 80 yards for a touchdown?
Did you ever, really?