The year 2008 continues to chug along and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that.
On the one hand, it’s been an incredibly boring year. On the other, the date when my company closes (and I, presumably, am looking for a job) continues to creep ever closer. We still haven’t been given any sort of drop-dead date, but our president has announced his retirement effective June 30. I doubt we’ll go on for much longer than that. The big question for me remains the same: Is there a job for me in U-Verse?
Be that as it may, I’d finally had enough of taking my car to the shop every three months, so I bought an Audi A3 Turbo Wagon about three weeks ago. It’s “brilliant black” (whatever that means) and – horrors! – an automatic transmission. It still gets slightly better mileage than my PT Cruiser did and it’s a solid car with low mileage. I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs on the way to Magnetawan next month.
Having purchased a German car, I felt somewhat guilty and so decided to help out a paramilitary group catchily named the Georgia State Defense Force when they called me a few weeks ago and asked if I’d play in a Memorial Day parade with them. After I’d agreed to play, the gig calendar changed quite quickly. It went from one parade to a change of command ceremony and two parades a week later. In for a penny, in for a pound, huh?
The change of command thing was on Sunday of last week in Forsyth, GA. I had a church gig that morning, but figured I could make it to the National Guard HQ by 2:00 (that’s 1400 in Army talk) easily enough. I’m never going to learn.
After the church thing, I changed into ACUs and hit the road by about 11:00 AM (1100). I made great time to downtown Atlanta…and then inched forward for close to an hour (60) through a 5-mile (8-click) section of the downtown connector which was being repaved. I ended up getting to the National Guard place at about five minutes before two (1355).
The head guy what’s in charge of the band (“Command Sergeant Major”) met me by the band (“musical unit”), shook my hand (“saluted”), warmly thanked me for being such a great help to them (“gave props”), and informed me that he’d forgotten to bring my music (“screwed up”). What he wanted me to do, he explained, was improvise (“wing it”) for about 45 minutes.
Uh. Yeah. Wing it for 45 minutes on pieces that I did not know with a band that…well…let’s just say that their center of pitch is actually a circle of pitch with a radius of about 90 cents. If you know what I mean.
So I bravely “winged it.” The highlight of the day for me was the playing of The Stars and Stripes Forever. Some of you hopefully know what I’m talking about when I mention the dogfight in the piece – where the low brass plays a series of decending 16th’s very loudly and obnoxiously. It’s a quite recognizable part of the piece.
Funny thing, though. I was the only guy playing that part. And I was the only one who didn’t have music. And nobody seemed to notice.
At any rate, I got through that debacle okay and made plans to meet up with the band the following Monday for the parades. Then I went home and started painting my deck.
Actually, I didn’t start painting until the following Saturday, but I did a heck of a job once I got started. Worked on it all day Saturday and managed to get a very stiff back, a great start on a sunburn – and about a third of the deck covered with primer. On Sunday, I managed to do the same thing. Monday, you’ll recall, was Memorial Day.
So it was Julie who actually got to finish covering the deck (and part of the sidewalk) with primer while I went off to defend America against invading hordes of parade watchers.
First stop was in Fairburn, GA, about 30 minutes south of Atlanta. I made it there in plenty of time for a 9:30 (0930) start. Problem was, nobody else did. After an hour or so, however, various people started dribbling toward a common area – looking like stragglers in, say, The Red Badge of Courage.
We marched the parade. A mile. Maybe two. I had music. I made (“asked” might be a better word) a colonel to take my picture. This was something that I had to do, because 1}It was the second time in my life that I’d been in an Army uniform and 2}It was the first time in two decades that I’d been reduced to carrying a sousaphone.
After the parade, we got some free foodstuffs from a kind-hearted local (who, no doubt, felt a great deal safer thanks to our visit) and then set off for Senoia, GA, which is about 30 minutes even further south.
The Senoia parade turned out to be a lot shorter (about 1/2 mile), a lot hotter and A LOT better attended. The town, with a population of around 12, somehow managed to pack 30K folks on the sidewalks to watch a great many bands, cars, tractors and soldiers walk down the main street.
I also got to play a different sousaphone – this time a silver Conn 20 with quick-action valves. The thing weighed a ton, but MAN…the bell on it rang like a gong. I have no doubt that I covered up the entired band in front of me. Power like that is hard to come by. And quite a bit of fun. And a great way to cover up a wildly-gyrating circle of pitch.
We finished up that parade by about 3 (1500) and I made it home by 4 (1600), which was just in time to get changed out of the uniform and head back downtown for a quintet rehearsal at 5 (5:00. My military bit was done for the day).
My little CC tuba has never so much fun to play. It felt like I was playing a trumpet or a clarinet or some other sub-standard instrument. I think I frightened my quintet.
But hey, I’ve done my part for America now. And don’t go thinking that it was all just fun and games. When I got up yesterday morning, my calves were on fire for several hours. And I still haven’t caught up on my sleep (I was on call all weekend).
So I think I can now safely say that my military sacrifices are equal to – or greater than – those of Dubya.
So there.
TWD