colors in black and orange, ancient and wool, for both seasons. High Beefeater fur hats that had to be cinched in so tight your eyebrows sat just above your upper lip. I remember bringing my uniform home. I was so excited, but I was kind of small, so they’d given me a girl’s uniform . . . with darts . Darts sewn into the chest and even worse, when I put it on the darts went in, accentuating my concave chest and giving me a look like I was the mold for a 1957 Cadillac bumper. My mom, bless her, stayed up all night taking out the darts, and I was set for the summer.
The summer of my ninth grade, Mr. Sand, the high school director, announced we’d been invited to a parade, a real parade. The Old Milwaukee Days Parade in Wisconsin. Before this year our only parade had been the Osseo Lions Club Parade . . . and that was only four blocks long and we followed a float from the retirement home. I guess it was a float. There was a pick-up truck with four people sitting in the back around a card table playing bridge, and they never looked up. I wondered if someone shouldn’t tell them, “Hey, you’re in a parade, wave or something.” But, then again, maybe being in a parade hadn’t been their idea to begin with. But now we were headed for the Old Milwaukee Days Parade. Three miles long and we would be judged against other bands.
Mr. Sand also announced he was going to turn us into something. We thought we were already something. We drilled for a month. “Come on you lazy good-for-nothings. You call that an embouchure? Put that horn to your lips and give me twenty.”
We marched into the night up and down, under the streetlights of Osseo. Kids were sitting on the corners, taunting us. Corner after corner . . . “lines tight, eyes forward!” . . . and Mr. Sand turned us into a well-oiled machine.
We made the drive to Milwaukee and spent the night in a motel. In the morning the entire drum section was in the motel office promising they’d “never do IT again,” and that they would “pay for IT.” They seemed a little foggy and their uniforms a bit off, like they were in the Italian Army.
We made our way to the parade site. There were busloads of bands from all over the country, eyeing each other over. As we lined up, I almost started laughing. We had this whipped. Mr. Sand’s plan was flawless. A block away we would start with “Hogan’s Heroes,” then as we approached the judging area, feint back with “MacArthur Park” as a palate cleanser. Then we’d hit ’em hard with the classic hit “25 or 6 to 4.” It was brilliant.
I looked up front at our drum major, Mike Marachek, an imposing figure in size fifteen boots and an all-white uniform. He was haughty, powdered, pampered, rouged, and ready for action. In his white Beefeater hat, he looked like a giant, beautiful Q-Tip. Then we lined up and suddenly an official jumped in front of our drum major.
“Hold it, hold it,” he said, one hand indicating “stop” and the other waving in. “Bring ’em in.”
And we watched as they escorted the forty-horse Clydesdale team in front of our band—amazing, majestic, imposing beasts pulling a large wagon of beer barrels. And no clean-up crew. Which meant in ten minutes we were going to be marching down the middle of Milwaukee in ninety-eight-degree heat with the forty-horse fun factory mining every step of our way.
Mr. Sand handed out salt pills. “Take these only in case of an emergency.” We all immediately took the salt pills.
THE PARADE STARTED. In no time my lips were parched. Those wool uniforms were heating up. My black Beefeater hat felt like a solar collector. Just before the judging table the front-row flute section hit something slick on the pavement. Watching those Beefeater hats drop was like out of a scene from The Patriot . It was horrible.
But just as fast they were up again, hats now at various angles and one player missing a flute but “miming” the instrument. Somehow we held it
The summer of my ninth grade, Mr. Sand, the high school director, announced we’d been invited to a parade, a real parade. The Old Milwaukee Days Parade in Wisconsin. Before this year our only parade had been the Osseo Lions Club Parade . . . and that was only four blocks long and we followed a float from the retirement home. I guess it was a float. There was a pick-up truck with four people sitting in the back around a card table playing bridge, and they never looked up. I wondered if someone shouldn’t tell them, “Hey, you’re in a parade, wave or something.” But, then again, maybe being in a parade hadn’t been their idea to begin with. But now we were headed for the Old Milwaukee Days Parade. Three miles long and we would be judged against other bands.
Mr. Sand also announced he was going to turn us into something. We thought we were already something. We drilled for a month. “Come on you lazy good-for-nothings. You call that an embouchure? Put that horn to your lips and give me twenty.”
We marched into the night up and down, under the streetlights of Osseo. Kids were sitting on the corners, taunting us. Corner after corner . . . “lines tight, eyes forward!” . . . and Mr. Sand turned us into a well-oiled machine.
We made the drive to Milwaukee and spent the night in a motel. In the morning the entire drum section was in the motel office promising they’d “never do IT again,” and that they would “pay for IT.” They seemed a little foggy and their uniforms a bit off, like they were in the Italian Army.
We made our way to the parade site. There were busloads of bands from all over the country, eyeing each other over. As we lined up, I almost started laughing. We had this whipped. Mr. Sand’s plan was flawless. A block away we would start with “Hogan’s Heroes,” then as we approached the judging area, feint back with “MacArthur Park” as a palate cleanser. Then we’d hit ’em hard with the classic hit “25 or 6 to 4.” It was brilliant.
I looked up front at our drum major, Mike Marachek, an imposing figure in size fifteen boots and an all-white uniform. He was haughty, powdered, pampered, rouged, and ready for action. In his white Beefeater hat, he looked like a giant, beautiful Q-Tip. Then we lined up and suddenly an official jumped in front of our drum major.
“Hold it, hold it,” he said, one hand indicating “stop” and the other waving in. “Bring ’em in.”
And we watched as they escorted the forty-horse Clydesdale team in front of our band—amazing, majestic, imposing beasts pulling a large wagon of beer barrels. And no clean-up crew. Which meant in ten minutes we were going to be marching down the middle of Milwaukee in ninety-eight-degree heat with the forty-horse fun factory mining every step of our way.
Mr. Sand handed out salt pills. “Take these only in case of an emergency.” We all immediately took the salt pills.
THE PARADE STARTED. In no time my lips were parched. Those wool uniforms were heating up. My black Beefeater hat felt like a solar collector. Just before the judging table the front-row flute section hit something slick on the pavement. Watching those Beefeater hats drop was like out of a scene from The Patriot . It was horrible.
But just as fast they were up again, hats now at various angles and one player missing a flute but “miming” the instrument. Somehow we held it
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