Happy Tuesday, Friend!
It’s March! I know it started last week, but this is my first time writing to you this month. March feels like a transitional month: winter turns to spring, we change our clocks, northerners are happy to see winter coming to a close, and Floridians are sad to see winter coming to a close. Somehow, another meaning of “march” visited my memories this week.
Have you ever been in a marching band? I was about a hundred years ago. My hometown is small, so the school and our band were also small. We didn’t do any of that fancy stuff that the big-school kids did. We showed up at football games, stood on the sidelines, and played the National Anthem. We played our school song and the opposing team’s song, then called it a day.
We had uniforms that were possibly made by the first settlers in the area. Let’s see, Wisconsin became a state in 1848, making our uniforms “older than dirt” by the time it got to my glory days of 1974-1978. We wore spats on our shoes and plumes in our hats. Red, black, and white from the crown of our young heads to the tips of our youthful toes. We represented our school, the mighty and proud Washburn Castle Guards.
We marched in a parade now and then. Of course, we marched in the Bayfield Apple Festival every October. Once, we even participated in the Christmas City of the North parade in Duluth, Minnesota. That was a cold one! I didn’t play one single note in that parade (I played the French horn). Between the freezing temps and the instrument bouncing around on my ice-cold mouth for the length of Superior Street, I was lucky to get half an “oom-pa” out. An occasional “oom” had to do.
And then, I went off to college and joined the band. Now I was with kids that had gone to huge schools and had been part of huge marching bands! They, in fact, did all the fancy stuff that I never learned.
My college marching band career lasted one day.
I remember standing out on the field; everyone else seemed to have that “I’ve done this a million times before” look in their eyes. There were numbers and letters on the sides of the field that were supposed to tell us where to stand. We were supposed to know how to get from one place to another while playing our instrument and not falling over. I was so thoroughly confused. All I had to know when I was in school was how to stay in line with the person to my right. No numbers. No letters. No bossy kids from bigger schools acting big.
That night, I got up in the middle of the night in my dorm room and walked down the hall to use the bathroom. It was unfamiliar territory yet, as I had just moved in a day or two prior, and in my sleepy stupor, pulled the heavy door right over the top of my toe, pretty much splitting my baby toe in half. ARRGGHHHH!! If you ever need to wake up really quickly, I recommend pulling a door over your foot and slicing your toe open. It really works!
I hobbled back to my dorm room, and all the ruckus must have woken up my roommate. One might think that all that hollering, crying, and blood dripping would annoy a roommate, but not mine! Lee Ann, who I’d known for a whopping two days, just happened to be a nursing major and was at the ready with her first aid kit. She bandaged me up like a pro and had me settled down quickly. I had one thought . . .
. . . . Ain’t no way I can march with this horrible injury! Free at last! Free at last!
The next day, I convinced my advisor I needed to be “out” of the marching band and even got it signed by the really mean and scary Director of Instrumental Music. Thank God Almighty, I was free at last!
Fast forward a bunch of years, and lo and behold, our youngest son was in the marching band at his high school. He did go to a big high school and learned all of those fancy moves right away. Those marching band kids worked their bee-hinds off! They started practicing weeks before school started each year, marching out on the field in the sweltering Florida August heat. And then, practiced just about every day after school once classes started. They practiced, practiced, practiced! All so they could show up for a home game or another school every Friday night and play and march their hearts out during the halftime. And you know what recognition they got?
Not much.
Most of the people were there to watch the football game, and halftime meant it was time to grab a hot dog at the concession stand. I often sat in the bleachers with the other band parents and wanted to yell at the people either leaving the stands or talking above the music and ignoring the band altogether, “Hey! Listen! These kids have worked so hard on this! Pay attention to them!”
The band kids were not the main draw those Friday nights, nor were the cheerleaders, the dance team, or the pompom girls. The main attraction was football and its players. I have to say, though, never once did I hear my son complain that not enough people were watching them. They were just happy to be out there, doing their thing, and enjoying the experience together.
This all makes me think about those people or groups of people we don’t always notice. In most situations, there are “up front” people and “in the background” people. Those up-fronters, man, they have it so together! They say all the right things and have all the cool moves. But I wonder how many backgrounders it takes to make those up-fronters look so good!
Just think about watching a movie. We are dazzled by the actors and the scenery, but what else needs to be done, and who needs to help make it all look so dazzling from the front? Those backgrounders are seldom or never seen but are crucially needed.
Consider this a shout-out to all the backgrounders out there—those who do much-needed tasks that might go unnoticed—those who rarely get a “thank you.” Keep on keeping on! And perhaps this could be a challenge for us (speaking to myself here) to look for those backgrounders and thank them for what they are doing. They may have had a lot of practice at it and think that no one is watching.
March on, my friend! You are making an impact, whether you know it or not!
Written with love – – Patti XOXO
Teddy as an FSU Marching Chief. Do NOT mess with him when he is running with a tuba!