This afternoon after school, from Lakewood Park up to the high school, Lakewood will be having its Spirit Parade. Join choirs, bands, teams, and other groups as they celebrate the spirit of Lakewood's Schools. Also this evening, Lakewood Alumni Band members will play along with the Lakewood Ranger Marching Band on the field for tonight's game. Looking to see you there!
Now, as usual from me, a little story:
Your Banjo Player's High School Secret…SHOCKING MUST READ!
With all the hoopla going on lately regarding the exposing of people's high school pasts, I thought it only right that you should know a shocking secret from out of my own dim distant high school past.
Now you’d better sit down here and prepare yourself, because this is a biggie. Indeed, it could well serve to disillusion you from your perception that the banjo is the center of my life.
Because friends, my real instrument was once the drum.
In my high school days, the banjo, and even the guitar,were but poor unwashed waifs in my life. My true love was with the drums.
Now I’ve said it. I’ve confessed it! Gee, I feel so much better.
Yes, my friends, it’s true. My first and real love was with the drums.
If it sounds here as if I am beating my own drum? So be it. As a matter of fact, this evening, (even though I am dealing with some right arm side effects of yesterday’s Tetanus shot booster) I plan to be playing my Scotch bass drum tonight (and spinning those sticks over my head!) with the Lakewood Ranger Marching Band's Alumni Band.
Back when I was in high school in the fall of 1966, I was assigned to the Scotch bass when I joined marching band. (Back then, the Scotch bass was the only bass drum in the band. These days, there use a number of "melodic" bass drums, so my obsolete drum is a bit of a dinosaur... like me.
)Being an exemplary snare drummer, I very much resented being put on the bass drum, so I started to play it half-heartedly. I think I’d been with the band maybe ten minutes when the band director came up to me with words likely similar to these, although with 51 year-old memories, the precise conversation admittedly eludes me:
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING RICE?”
“SIR! PLAYING THE BASS DRUM SIR”
“YOU ARE NOT PLAYING THE BASS DRUM RICE! YOU ARE PETTING IT! WE CANNOT HEAR YOU! I WANT YOU TO BEAT THAT DRUM!!!”
“SIR YES SIR!”
So I had been in the band for ten minutes, and already I had been challenged. Feeling furious and frustrated, I began to strike that heavy drum with all my might.
Now it’s important to realize that traditions are important in marching bands. On that bass drum happened to be the very last hand-painted Lakewood Ranger, astride his bucking bronco. Within perhaps the passing of another ten minutes, I had ripped a huge gash in that irreplaceable drum head. In the deafening silence that followed, you could easily hear the steady cadenced pacing of the band director, coming over to me…
“RICE! WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?”
“SIR! I BEAT IT!”
The football field was as quiet as it has ever been before or since…
“RICE, I ASSIGNED YOU TO THE BASS DRUM BECAUSE IN THIS BAND, THERE IS ONLY ONE BASS DRUMMER! YOU ARE THE HEARTBEAT OF THIS BAND! EVERYONE MUST HEAR YOU, AND MARCH TO YOUR BEAT ALONE! NOW… BREAK MORE HEADS!”
Friends of ours living on Riverside Drive once told us that on Friday nights, they always heard the sound of my bass drum alone, although the stadium was miles away, and yes, over the following years, more heads were indeed broken.
There are many lessons learned in high school that last for a lifetime. Some of those are sublime indeed, and as recent history has shown us, what happens in high school does not always stay in high school.
Indeed, I learned many lessons on that field that day about many things for which I have to thank that long-ago band director; about drumming, life, success, failure, confidence, leadership skills, service, dedication to a cause, you name it.
YOU SAY THAT YOU DON’T PLAY THE DRUMS?
WE DON’T CARE, THAT’S COOL!
WE JUST WANT YOU ALL TO KNOW,
THAT RANGER DRUMMERS RULE!
Hope to see you this evening.
Back to the bass drum, or banjo, or whatever else makes noise!