Older. Maybe Wiser.

 My day job involves asking insurance companies if they're willing to pay my employer for providing care for what we might best call mutual acquaintances.

My hospital stay last year was a bit of a reminder of how that portion of our population lives.  Through my own sheer stubborn stupidity, I had a region of infection on my foot.  I'd gone into the Urgent Care one day to ask for help.  The Urgent Care folks promised to get me some help and get back to me.  Then I heard nothing.  And my foot got worse.

So after being admitted, I found out that it wasn't going to be a quick in-and-out sort of visit.  I spent nearly a week watching bad daytime TV - and bad TV in general.  I learned that the nurses are really the people who run the hospital and care for patients.  There's a new innovation in medical care these days called a "Hospitalist".  I've got a regular doctor I go to for my health care.  When I was admitted to the hospital, they didn't let him know I was in.  Instead, a very nice lady doctor (I mention her gender so the shifts between "he" and "she" later make sense) came in and checked how I was doing pretty much daily.  

The hospitalist doctor is a specialist who sees patients in the hospital.  I imagine they don't get to develop the sort of relationship with the people they see that my regular doctor has developed with me.  But she was watching over me.  And she was a participant when the surgeon came into the hospital room two days after the operation, and aided in that little bit of AYFKM medical care.  That is, Are You Freaking Kidding Me?  I learned at that moment, that some surgeons are unaware that anesthetists do NOT precede them around the hospital, knocking their next patients (gee, aren't you pleased I didn't type "victim" there?) out before they arrive.  My surgeon produced a pair of scissors from a pocket, and then proceeded to slice open the ace bandages and other packing that was rather firmly around my foot, and then poke and prod at the place which, less than 48 hours before, had been under the knife, less than 40 hours before was still leaking blood when I tried to pee, and oh, by the way, the last pain killers I'd received were six hours previous - and were a couple of aspirin.  Nothing high-octane there.

So yeah, I am aware that surgeons are fairly specialized healthcare folks.  I promise to do my best in the future to avoid meeting yet another one.  I hope I'm successful.  

But the real irony here is on the back of those folks who complain about health care.  Granted, I'm on the "provider" side, and I am in no way whatsoever clinical.  That is, I know a whole lot about how to code things, how to assemble a treatment your doctor might say you need into a series of basic descriptive codes which tells the insurance company not only this is what's going on with your health, but this is what we are doing to make you better, and oh, by the way, if it's not too much trouble, might we be able to get paid for providing this to you?  

That's right.  All the people complaining about health care, I'm on the side where we are supposed to be getting what is sometimes called "prior authorization".  There are many times where "prior" does not mean what I thought it meant.  Fortunately, many of the organizations I work with do understand that in an environment like today, doctors will decide on a therapy that lets a patient get out of the hospital, go home to their own bed, television, refrigerator, and all the rest, and try to get better.  All of that happens before someone bothers to ask the insurance company if they want to pay for the home health rather than the hospital.

I think we can all be adult enough to recognize that spending time in a hospital is something of a luxury for those of us who have insurance.  That is, I was blessed with the rather good fortune of not having used all of my vacation time my employer allotted me last year, when I got sick, and all of the time I spent in the hospital was covered by my "vacation".  Overall, it was by far one of the most expensive "vacations" I've ever taken, but I can tell you that I'm glad I survived it.  

I was fortunate in that I was sent home with a basic hole in my foot which needed time to heal.  The medical device they sent home with me was utterly useless - and that was no fault of anyone but the fellow who owned the foot and let the infection grow right where it did.  That'd be me.  But my foot is still healing well.  And my insurance company is concerned that I do heal fully so they can continue to collect premiums from my family.

Some insurance companies have forgotten that little fact that the check they cash is coming from a live human, and when they need the insurance company to step up and cover them, it's going to be a pretty bad week for the person who pays the premiums.  Either they're the sick one, or they're providing care for someone they're very close to, because they married that person or they are parenting that sick person, so there's that little part.  Most of us don't have all the marbles organized when we get sick, and it just goes downhill from there.

So what, you mutter, is he blathering on about now?  That title up there seems to be a pretty bait-and-switch thing going here...

Not really.  I have found, as I age, that I'm recognizing that I may have peaked, as we say, a fairly long while ago.  And some of those things I'm recognizing are really landing close to home.

I was very blessed, as a young man, to have the opportunity to participate in musical performances as part of my education.  In fact, as I look back on it, the very highest point of every single school day for me, once I reached High School and began to mature, was that hour a day we had "band practice." 

I had cast about for some way to make noise as a child that was pleasant, and hadn't had much luck.  In fact, my parents did seriously entertain my request to take accordion lessons.  Fortunately, Weird Al Yankovic had nothing to worry from me.  My future piano lessons ahead of me were probably a hell of a lot more successful because the keyboard was all out in front of me where I could see the whole damned thing in one row.  Strapping a contraption to my chest and then being coordinated enough to stand, move the sides in and out, and continue to move my fingers to make a pleasing noise?  Well, I was coordinated - but not that much.

As I grew a little older, I began to notice that a great many people had the talent to play a guitar - but my fine motor control just wasn't there.  A guitar was a rather expensive little gadget, and while I might be able to make my own, the odds were slim that I'd be able to pull that off. However, I did notice that in most groups of more than about three folks, there was usually one person seated - usually in the middle, in the back, and banging away on things that made noise.  And they kept everyone together.  

I gravitated there.  Then the role models started slipping out from the backgrounds.  Gene Krupa was an early name.  Also Buddy Rich.  Then I started reading more, and looking around, and learned a little bit more about rock and roll - and Ringo Starr.  Anyone who repeats the old canard that Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles flat out missed the point in that poor joke.  The Beatles became who they were as each of them matured both as people, and artists.  To bring all of that to the table, where ever you are, is pretty spectacular.  Then I started paying attention to drummers.  And found my people in Animal - both the Muppet version, and the original incarnation in Keith Moon. 

And so when I was in High School, there were quite a lot of moments that I did not see at the time as a "peak" but now when I look over my shoulder, there were moments when we as a group, a team, a band played some piece of music and people enjoyed it.  

There were many great moments.  I can admit that many came when I was sitting in bleachers or stands as a spectator for a sporting event, the band director out front asked us to play a song, and we did it well.  One of my favorites from that time was the rather iconic still even today was Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple.  The ultimate expression of the power chord translated well into a more brass-heavy band, but as most of us as people had heard the song on the radio, it was a real joy to put our best efforts into it when the director called for it.  There were other songs, like Beginnings by Chicago, or Hit Me With Your Best Shot By Pat Benetar, or Horse which typically were a lot of fun.  

But I also enjoyed walking around with a drum.  My first experience was encouraged when I ran into a friend of mine from Grade School after saturday evening mass one week.  I asked him what he was up to, and he told me that he had followed his older sister into our new high school marching band.  A little Duh music now would be good, because there I was, about to start High School at the same school my father had attended four decades prior.  As had his sisters.  And they had been in the school's marching band program.  And I was in band, so I could be in band, but I had to ... well, work out a little deal with how to get there, when, and could I handle the workload? 

Little tip for you - if you're a percussionist, your local school still has a summer band program, pay attention, and head into the music teacher's office.  Ask if you can join.  Most of them will be thrilled.  I showed up, told the band teacher who I was, and what I played, she pointed me in the direction of the back of the room where, for the previous four years, I had spent one afternoon a week for about eight months out of the year practicing playing music with a bunch of kids from other private Catholic schools in town.  And as I looked around, I recognized a few faces from that time.  

I didn't recognize anyone in the back of the room, but I was quickly gathered up, given a small bass drum, asked if I knew my right from my left, and then shown how to connect that little drum to an odd bit of kit that formed a set of straps.  They formed a sort of figure 8 on my back, went over and under my shoulders, across my back, and right back to a pair of eye bolts attached to the top of this aluminum-and-wood contraption that weighed in at about twenty five pounds.  And then I learned how to walk, in a marching band, with a bunch of other people.

That first night, I was paired with another more experienced fellow who kept an eye on me and tried to make sure I walked straight and at the same pace that he did.  He explained that the look of a marching band, from the outside, depended on uniformity.  That is, I took steps the same size he did - and that everyone else did too.  Which was weird, because we had a tuba player in the back of the band that was at that time a good three feet taller than I was.  I wasn't the shortest person in the band, fairly close to average, but he showed me how to line up the top edge of the drum in front of me with a spot on the back of the person in front of me.  Our marching band typically lined up in a sort of arrow form, if you were looking from the top down.  Up front were the flute and clarinet and saxaphone players - the woodwinds - who formed a wedge that was about six people wide.  When we lined up, we would all reach out and make sure we were roughly an arm's length away from one another.  Six people wide in most of the rows, except for the front of the band, and ... well, when you got to the middle.  

In years when we were "fully booked" the percussion section started with bell players.  Six wide, following the saxaphone players, each carried a sort of vertical bell rack which sometimes gets called a "glockenspiel".  This thing was pretty heavy, close to the small bass drum.  And they would play it by beating their single mallet on the correct bars.  Because their left arm was out there holding up the bell frame, which at the bottom was installed in a socket in a strap that ran up and over their "off" shoulder.  

The bell players were followed, in fully booked years, by six cymbal players.  Yeah, you know, six fairly large - we used 22 inch - metal sheets with handles that were bashed together to make that crashing sound.  Those six were followed by the six snare drummers.  Each had a strap over their shoulder down to the snare drum, about two and a half times thicker than your standard concert snare.  What's that?  There's a difference, you ask?  Well, the tone of a drum is utterly dependent on the volume of the drum.  Not as in the level of sound like the volume of your ear buds, but in how much air is enclosed by the two heads that form a typical drum.  Snare drum, that is.  Because a snare drum has two head.  Drums with only one head are typically referred to as toms, if they're open on the bottom.  If the bottom is rounded and closed, you may hear "kettle drums" though the proper name is usually tympani.  

What's the difference?  Well, all drums can be tuned.  Most drums have "lugs" on them - not like tires, but well, yeah, like tires.  In that they keep things going.  The drum head is usually a layer - a skin - often made out of plastic or rarely, these days, an animal's hide.  In toms, the thin layer of plastic is usually attached to a metal band that fits around the drum.  The top of a drum, the "rim" is usually another metal ring that fits around the top edge of the drum and has a series of holes, where the metal "lugs" are fit through and tightened.  The tighter the lugs are, the more pressure they put to keep the drum head tight, the higher pitch you'll hear from the drum.  In other words, when you hear what you think of as a "pop" is typically from a shallow drum.  The bigger and deeper the drum, the lower the boom gets.  

What makes a snare drum special is the bottom.  Across the bottom drum head, which is very much similar to the top drum head, is a row of wires.  Typically, they look an awful lot like you stretched out a small spring you pulled out of a pen.  The tighter they're stretched, the quicker and shorter the "buzz" is when you hit a drum.  Most snare drums have a screw on one side that can be used to tighten or loosen the tension, and there's also usually a lever you can flip which lets the snare wires hang away from in contact with the bottom drum skin.  This makes more of a "boom" without the buzz.

But the reason I mention that is because, when it comes to a good marching band, the snare drums are usually tuned together.  That is, you have six people bashing away on them, and some bang harder than others - so they tune, carefully, so they all sound the same.  The basic idea for a drum section is for all six of those folks to sound like just one very loud drummer - they drum identically.  

And that's the end of conformity when you're working your way through the percussion section.  I mean, the rest of us walked the same way, straight lines and all, but then we had the big stars - the bass drums.  I don't say that because I played them.  I say that because there are very few instruments in the world that you can physically feel when they're played.  Sure, a well played violin or guitar can make you feel, but I'm talking about the heartbeat of the band.  I could feel the marching bass drum blocks before the band came by.  I felt the concussion of the boom in my chest.  Which is probably why I was thrilled by it.  

In our band, we had only two bass drummers.  We had two bass drums.  In light years, if the bass drummer was big enough, we used the big drum.  It was about three and a half feet across, and about eighteen inches wide.  That is, if you set it up so it might roll down the street, it was 18" from side to side, but it would stand about three and a half feet tall.

And it was carried the same way the other bass drum was.  Strapped across your chest.  And that first summer, I learned many lessons in carrying a bass drum.  They aren't as heavy as they look, but there's definitely a secret in how you play them.  Most kids when they see a big drum want to play it by hitting it in the center.  And you learn, when you play them regularly, that you aren't going to have much effect if you do that.  If you strike it closer to the edge, you get a more resonant sound - and you can muffle it in part, too.  

So my first parade wasn't the one close to my home town - I'd joined the band a little late in the season, we had only three parades left, and I ended up walking along the route as an assistant - water bottle, pick up dropped sticks, hand out spares, as the band went along.  But then I got to be in my first parade.  After a three hour bus ride early on a Sunday morning, we hopped off the bus, pulled our long black pants over our shorts, put on our suit coats over tee shirts, pulled the harnesses on for our drum kits, then check to make sure your spats - a white leatherette sort of cover for your shoes - black leather dress shoes, nothing else allowed - were clean, all white, the strap was under the center of your foot, and all four snaps were closed ON THE INSIDE of your foot, up to your ankle, and the top of the spat was hidden by the bottom of your pant leg.  Then the overlay that hid most of the strapworks, hooked up the drums, and plonked on our heads the hot, black, furry "shako" hats.  Huh?  If you've ever seen a "changing of the guard" at Buckingham Palace, the guards wear those style of hats.  Tall, black, not particularly heavy, but plenty warm, yup.

And then after you got all of that hooked up, you had to make sure the neck of your overlay was closed.  It was a stand-up collar that had a metal hook that slipped through a metal loop right under your chin.  So there you were - a metal cylinder strapped to your chest, no gloves - the rest of the band wore white cloth gloves, most of the woodwinds cut the finger tips out, but we didn't have the control we needed on drumsticks if we tried to hold them with cloth gloves on - that was a non-starter.  

So we lined up, and then I remember very clearly we got ourselves organized and in position on a nice, heavily-shaded street, marched - not walked, you stepped very specifically heel first and rolled the rest of your foot down UNLESS we were doing the slow march, then you snapped your foot forward quickly, but you HAD to keep the bottom of your foot level to the ground.  Snap out, then land on it when the whole foot hits the ground at the same time.  We headed out, turned left/south, and ... oh, did I forget to tell you that we're here in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is usually to the south around noon time, and oh, yeah, I'm carrying a cylinder of POLISHED ALUMINUM and wood strapped to my chest?

That's right, sports fans, right there, about four inches below my chin, with no beard on it because I was not quite 15 at the time, was a giant mirror.  And I was facing south, right into the bright sun, and we were marching down the middle of a street with almost no trees on either side of it, because you know that would have blocked the view, right?  So we turned south and headed about twenty or so blocks, straight down to the lake.  Then we turned right, west, for another couple of blocks before we found shade.

And when I got out of the bus that evening to go home with my family, there was some consternation when I arrived home.  My mother wanted to know what I had been doing that allowed me to get a sunburn on my neck and under my chin?  

Yup.  Blistering sunburn.  

But I had fun.  And I continued doing that every year I could until my last parade, in Glenwood, Minnesota, in late July of 1982.  There was a peak I'd missed until recently.  These days, I see a few parades, and I almost never see a marching band.  That's sad.  I had so much fun, it was rewarding.  Not financially, but the experience could not be replaced.  I remember the second year in Marching band, we had the opportunity to go from the site of my first parade all the way up into Canada, and over to Edmonton - we got to participate in a festival.  

It was, in that time, traditional for marching bands to try to maintain an every-four-year cycle of doing big trips.  It kept it interesting, fun, and exciting, and kept the membership interested and active.  I was damned lucky.  We went to Edmonton my second year, and I'll never forget the dreadful feeling we had when we reached the end of our route.  We were informed, by our band director, that due to miscommunication, the judging section had moved.

That's right, folks.  We didn't just do it for fun.  Every parade had a trophy to hand out, and sometimes it came with a cash award, too.  Before you get all excited, let's make the very clear point that the cash award to the winners almost never covered the cost of the bus rental to get everyone there.  And that was for the best band!  So yeah, there was a lot of work for pride, and a wood and plastic trophy.  But the pride was big.

And bands were judged on just about everything.  Judges would look at the front end of the band, typically referred to as the "color guard".  Their routines - waving the flags, together, and the same amount at the same time - were judged in relation to the music the band played behind them.  

And there were other people making sure that the band not only sounded good but looked good too.  Everyone was in step, where they should be, and moving as they were supposed to as the band traveled.  I learned early on the key for making sure you were in the right place was to come up with a reference on the top of your drum.  But you also used the diagonals.  That is, you were expected to walk down the street looking forward.  Not turning your head left and right to check where you were - not at all.  You were "locked in" straight forward - and you could use the diagonals.  You'd look forward left and forward right - and make sure you lined up with everyone there.  That was how you checked where you were.

And that's where it got very much harder the last three years in Marching Band.  

After two years of playing the drum you could feel, I got to step up.  My marching band had, at the very back of the percussion section, two ... well, we were guys when I was there, who played what we called the "triples".  My first year, these were metal drums - aluminum - that were attached to a bracket that pretty much rode on your hips.  You had a pair of plain flat wide straps that attached to the front of this frame that stuck about a foot in front of you, and the slightly-padded rear plate rested below your belly button, on your hip bones.  

Attached to that frame were three drums - these were "toms".  Tuned to a high, medium, and low pitch, they were about a foot tall, the smallest was about fourteen inches across, the middle one was about eighteen inches across, and the big drum, on my right, was twenty-two inches across.  So from my shoulders I had a frame that carried about sixty pounds of metal drums.  

And then, that fall, they took both sets of those drums down to a metal shop in town, had a portion of the drum cut away, and the following summer, they had gone from sixty pounds to about forty pounds - and they were much, much louder.  That was because rather than cutting straight across the bottom all the way around, they cut a diagonal that started in the front of the drum, and dropped to the back,.  So instead of being a foot tall, the front of each drum was around four inches, and it dropped as the line went around until you got to the back, where the back of the drum was a foot tall. 

This lightened the weight a little, but it also helped to project the sound out, rather than down.  Instead of just bouncing up from the street, you had the sound projecting.  Because of the size difference in these drums, you got used to carrying an unbalanced load.  And I got good enough that, one evening when we were in a small local parade and some ... I made the assumption then and hold to it today that they were amateur video cameramen decided to see if they could get us to move.  

You see, most parades were judged in one spot, but there were also judges every foot of the way on a parade.  Every spectator could see the flaws if someone was out of position or out of step, so we stuck to formation.  We also knew most parades also graded the bands on "crowd affect" - that is, if you showed up, played one song in front of the judges, and played a cadence the rest of the way, they didn't like that.

Oh my God.  I forgot to explain cadences.  Most marching bands have two things going on.  There are songs when the entire band plays, and there are cadences.  Those are for the times the rest of the band needs to catch their breaths.  Because we didn't need to breath to play our instruments - well, that is, we didn't need the breath to blow into our instruments - the percussion section typically played all but about three steps of every block.  We typically had three or four cadences we played marching down the street.  

Our first cadence was named One - because it was one of a suite of four written for us.  So we started with One.  The second cadence we used for all five years was called Jive.  That was my favorite because it built.  It started with the bass drum along booming along for four steps.  Then the cymbals would add in four tight claps - not big flashy strikes, but held close to their chests, just an open-close quick beat.  Then the triples would start up with an up-and-down pattern that was exhausting for long periods.  You started two beats on the left side mid-drum and one strike on the high drum - a beat of rest, then two more on the mid drum and one on the bottom.  That was three strikes per foot-fall.  Once we'd gone four steps on that pattern, the snare drums roared in with a syncopated beat that kept everyone bouncing.  After about sixteen bars of that, they'd get a rest, and us poor triple guys would get a fairly complex solo for about eight bars, then the snares would roll up and back in.  

Then came the final cadence, another one of a set.  We'd had a set called "Blood, Sweat, and Tears" - Blood was the only one that survived.  And it was, brutal for any drummer.  Well, the bass drums kept a steady beat.  The snare and triple guys beat holy hell.  It was a very complex routine that worked best when you had two triples, because it was a sort of duet/competition of sorts.  To bring it all the way up to 10 in the difficulty routine, it used sextuplets, which is a really fast beat. It's complex when you're marching because it's an interruption of your normal rhythm, and each beat had to be clear.  Unlike a drum roll, where the stick should bounce only twice before you pick it up and let the other stick bounce twice, a sextuplet was about six individual strikes in the same length of time, no buzz, no rebound - just a bang and up.

As time went along, we added a fourth cadence, which we actually inserted as the second in order, where we had the bells do a solo.  Once we got used to the idea, we had two different tunes - one was "Oh Come Little Children" and after a while, we were goofing around - as one does when you're given too much time to practice together without adult supervision - someone figured out and taught the rest of the bell section what we used to call the "Old Spice Jingle" - which I later learned was the tune Scotland The Brave.  

As far as wonderful memories go, I remember some grumbling from the percussion section and the rest of the back of the band - trumpets, trombones, baritones, and tubas followed the percussion section - when these new cadences came in.  One of my best friends had started learning trumpet, moved to the baritone as his braces started to dig in, then he moved up to the tuba/Sousaphone.  The marching Sousaphone typically takes two forms.  There's the traditional "you wear it" sort that you see from a distance as a big round horn from the back of some marching bands.  The tubes would coil around the chest and waist of the tuba player, while the bell, where the sound comes out, is up over their heads.  

Then the other form, which we lovingly referred to as the Bazooka Mount, used a more traditional concert tuba - these are the sort that typically look like they're launching something straight up.  Except for marching, they're carried on the shoulder, the tuba bell is pointed forward, and they're the only folks I really felt had it worse than drummers.  

But when the bell cadences came in, our tuba players would sing, in falsetto, into their mouthpieces, amplified by their instruments, and they figured out, at least during practice, to walk and pirouette at the same time, so they looked like huge wind-up toys in the back of the band, singing along.  It was funny.

But back to the amateur video camera fool story.  We're supposed to not deviate.  Doesn't matter if there's a pothole there, horse crap there, or anything else.  We're taught to keep moving.  If it's something on the road surface, you were allowed to move around it if it was big and deep enough to kill you.  Otherwise you were expected to go over or through.  And if it was an object that could move, you just kept going.  It was there job to get out of the way.

And I'll never forget this evening, because I was marching along, and the camera nut was getting in the way of some of the front of the band.  He wanted to get close up shots of people and occasionally bumped or brushed people.  And I was about six feet wide.  So when he dropped to one knee with his assistant behind him, and wanted to get a shot from under and through my drum (we used clear drumheads), I kept going.  And when his camera wasn't low enough to avoid it, I'm sure he was terribly disappointed when I clipped it and knocked it out of his hands.  

He was in the way.  My band director later told me that it wasn't my fault, I did what I had been trained to do.

Then came our second band drip.  During my senior year of High School, we received an invitation to appear in a festival parade in Winnipeg.  Just five hours north, give or take a bit, and we'd be in another massive trip.  

And the memories of Edmonton rose again.  All that work, all the hard effort, and no trophy to show for it.  I mean, we had a wonderful time, I'd still love to go back to Edmonton some day, and Jasper, too, but Winnipeg has a piece of my heart.

After graduation, a lot of hard work went into it, and there were about a dozen of us graduated seniors who stuck it out.  We stayed.  And we worked.  Hard.  Most of us remembered, and talked about the feelings we had after Edmonton.  And we quietly, but individually, I think, resolved to do better.  Then we got the word.  

Most parades back in the late 70s-early 80s were maybe a mile or so.  Pretty short.  Winnipeg was another animal entirely.  We spent a lot of time working on our turns and our marching because if you were to get screwed up, it was going to be a corner.  But they were challenges, we liked them.  And Winnipeg was different.  

We were told we'd line up in a parking ramp, downtown Winnipeg.  We'd line up and march down, out of a parking ramp, onto the street.  Thankfully, not a full modern ramp with those spiral things to get you up and down the levels.  We were lined up at the top of the last ramp, we'd come down it, straight shot.  Turn left to go a half block or so, then another left.  Then we would go two miles, down pretty much a highway, and then a right turn into a parking lot.  

Due to the arrangement of the parade, and the length, and that we were nearly the last band, they would complete judging and announce the winners before we'd left the street.  So rather than be able to gather and hear the results together, we'd find out at the end of the parade.  It'd be a done thing.  

So we did our thing.  I remember getting through the judging section and being very, very mad.  Not at Winnipeg or anything else.  I was focused and angry because I did not want to be the one who cost us the win.  I wanted to stay focused and do it right.  All the way to the end of the route.  

And so we turned into the parking lot and started marching towards where our buses had parked when I recognized a fellow in a black suit, a white shirt, a little black bow tie, and the tallest trophy I'd ever seen.  Only someone who's been through a marching band or military experience knows that you don't break ranks, no matter what, until the major lets you know.  And it's just easier to travel marching than it is walking.  If you're walking, you're carrying a crapload of equipment.  If you're marching, you're playing.  It's lighter.

Our drum major called a quickstop - that is, rather than play to the end of the cadence, or even to a pre-defined stopping point, we stopped at the end of the third whistle.  And as soon as we did, our band director roared "FIRST PLACE".  

I don't believe it, but to this day, one of my best friends says I had jumped up and my knees where up to his shoulders.  I had a fairly decent vertical, but I doubt I made a four or five foot leap with forty pounds of off-kilter drums strapped on me.

But I do remember the feeling of relief.  I had graduated high school, I was an almost-adult in the eyes of the world, but best of all, that humiliation I'd felt when we blew it in Edmonton had been relieved as we had a trophy that was almost five feet tall, and a banner announcing that we'd won Grand Champion at the festival.

The truly ironic thing is that when I look back at it, we were considered one of the better bands in the state - even larger schools feared us.  One of the nearby high schools had a bit more money to dedicate to their band, and some years before had bought uniforms that made them look like toy soldiers.  Over the years, they made several trips to the Macy's Thanksgiving parade because they were willing to wear the makeup.  So they had that going for them.

Then there was the high school down the road from us a bit that had a couple of power plants in their tax areas, so they had a lot of money to work with at school district level.  And I know there were more than a few grumbles from the adults who saw their uniforms.  The band uniforms wore what we used to call "Fuller Brushman Hats" - if you've ever seen Trojan warrior helmets in the movies, with the row of bristles running front to back, that's what the band wore.  

The poor color guard girls, though were ... well, I will say this - I do not know how they convinced so many parents this was what had to be done, but they put these girls in what looked like long-sleeved one-piece swimsuits that were covered with sequins - no shorts or pants, just what we used to call go-go boots.  Black, knee-high boots, and every one of those girls looked like she was an advertisement for some makeup company.  Not Avon, nope.  That would have been tasteful - these girls looked like they troweled it on. Maybe they served as test subjects for sweat-tolerant or sweat-proof makeup.  I dunno.  All I knew for certain was at every parade where we saw them, most of the guys shut their mouths, because we were bright enough to recognize any wiseass crack about their appearances would rather quickly be entered in what ever accounting system high school girls used to determine the worthiness of the males of the species around the same age.  A few guys made comments, and it wasn't too hard to figure out why they never had dates.  I mean, most of the rest of us knew we were neither worthy of the girls we thought we might want to date, or stood a snowballs chance in hell getting to go on a date with one of them.

And today, I recognize that one of the truths of maturing is that the females of our shared species tend to mature faster than the males, and there are certain cringe-worthy periods where the female portion recognize and rather successfully evaluate much of the male portion of our species as, well, disturbed, pathetic goons is probably the best, safest description.  Undoubtedly, many of the males of the species, during that time, are deep in the clutches of hormone hell.  It is, I think, pretty spectacularly unfair for men to go through a period of both chemical and social awkwardness at a time where the word "maturity" is not even laughingly used as a description, unless the prefix "im" or "not" or "what a dork" are more appropriate.

I know it's not fair, because young men go through this hormone tornado and physical awkwardness at a time when they really want to be respected and recognized as decent, worthy people.  Truthfully, the old adage that most young men should be placed in a barrel at the age of 12, and then six years later it is determined whether to release them or drive the bung home makes a lot of sense.  Some few fellows do manage to win the hormone lottery at that time, and make the best with what they get.  Most of the rest of us are fortunate to win the title of sweaty, smelly oaf - because that can be fixed with soap, water, and ... well, a little practice.

Some of these folks, however, end up disfigured by acne or other skin conditions, or just saddled with nicknames that never, ever go away.  Fortunately, I was able to meet my wife after I'd left the valley of hormone hell, and was a little more mature and comprehensively put together.  And I've managed to keep her in the dark, away from the full-on-dork mode, for over thirty years now. 

Either that, or perhaps she's determined my full-on dork mode is somewhat tragically endearing, and she'll keep an eye on me as I age, disgracefully.  But together, she did help me achieve what is admittedly my greatest peak, which is raising two feral offspring into decent, contributing, and downright great people.  So I got that going for me, so I can't complain all that much.

But I do miss some of those times, but I'm also honest enough to admit I'd never be able to recapture them if I tried.  I've got my limits, they're usually closer to me than I'm willing to admit, but when I think back on summer days when my father would pull the car out to go to work and I'd head out into the garage and work on little woodworking, miniature projects, or whatever, with nothing to worry about other than maybe the next time the lawn needed to be mowed - those were the days.  When the time was all yours, what you wanted to do, and no one - other than your mom and dad - could tell you what they wanted from you.

Ah well.  Is what it is.