Chewymom

It was halftime of my first college football game, and I was terrified. I had played bass drum in a marching band before–a high school band, that is. A tiny (and terrible) one at that with about 20-30 people. The spectators took advantage of half-time to buy concessions. Or to boo.

This band was different. It was Furman University, with an outstanding band reputation to match its academic prestige. And somehow I had made it past the audition and was marching with the center bass drum in a line of five. The moves were tricky, especially with a large weight strapped to my midsection, completely throwing off any sense of balance I may have had. Still the director did not hesitate to have us turn, march forward, stop on a dime (or a hash mark), march backward, and even sing in one song! We did it all with what seemed to us to be perfection (after a solid week of 10-hour-per-day practices, what else would we expect?). And we were well-rewarded by a standing ovation from the spectators. I stood with tears in my eyes as I witnessed one person and then another and another rise to their feet to applaud for our efforts!

Day in, day out for three years I marched throughout the football season, playing the same drum with mostly the same people. Only two of the five bass drums changed hands over the course of my three years. Although we had gifted drum majors, the real treat came when the band director himself would lead us. His arms would flail, and he would bend and bow to the music as if he were a puppet with an out-of-control puppeteer. At the end of the number, he would stop, sweaty and visibly exhausted and emotional. He would step down from the podium and let the drum major carry on, and in a few minutes he would begin his usual belting of instructions to us as we marched.

Not long after I graduated from Furman, the band director also left, and the band changed drastically. It went from a band who was invited annually to record albums for Jensen sound, from a band who modeled marching and music for high school bands all over the country, to a band who played Mickey Mouse at half-time.

Years passed, and I returned to Furman for a reunion and was surprised to discover my band director back in his old position. After several years, he has once again built a strong program. Last weekend I had the privilege of watching the band perform. At the end of the game, the band gathered in front of the stands for a post-game concert–a tradition established long ago. My children ran through the stands gathering souvenir cups tossed aside by spectators, as we moved closer and closer to where the band played.

As we were ready to leave, the drum major stepped down, and my director took the stand. I stood mesmerized as the band played. The tune was unfamiliar, but the bending and bowing of my director’s body was as familiar as an old coat, pulled from the closet at the end of the summer. It wrapped me up and held me still. His hair was grayer, and his back a bit more hunched, but it was the same man who stood there, making love to the music. As the band played, I flew back in time and was a young student marching for a director I loved in front of a crowd of supporters. At the end of the song, as the director stepped away, sweaty and spent, I found I was the one who was emotional. I turned and collected my five children and their fifty-three souvenir cups.

Thank you for the trip down memory lane, Mr. Bocook.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 5:48 pm and is filed under This and That. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.