It’s time to restart my blog. Let’s pick up where we left off, preserving amazing, often hysterical (or humbling) tales of my past. This will also save one of my old Facebook posts from when that platform served as a friendly conversation pit. This exchange happened Jan. 6, 2018, when I shared one of my high school band portraits. A conversation soon wove into three of my student exploits. My older sister started it off…
My older sister: Didn’t you share a story about giving your band teacher a hard time or was that (my older brother)'s story?
My older (and only) brother: I didn't give a band director a hard time, but I knew people who did.
Me: In my junior year, there were two times our high school band teacher started class by ejecting me. I believe the first time came when I was directing the presidential mock election for our school. Now understand that band was my first class each day. When the day came to hold our mock election's debate, which would take place in the second hour, I told our band instructor that I needed to be excused from class. He refused; we had a marching contest that week and thus I needed to practice. So I managed to step out, grab a fellow student who was setting up for the debate in the nearby auditorium, and I asked him to notify my supervising election teacher that I couldn't get out of band. That teacher then intercepted the band instructor, who got mad and told me (and that teacher) to get out. Now to his credit, my band instructor kept his promise to me and got the jazz band together to play for the student crowd as they filed into the auditorium for the debate, but he refused to talk to me when I thanked him. The SECOND time came from an article I wrote for the school paper. Earlier in the week our band instructor had told the class how our jazz band won a contest at Yukon, and he shared a funny story about the reaction of the Yukon band instructor. Being the school paper reporter responsible for the band, I wrote up an article about the contest using that story. Now, you may recall that our student paper was printed weekly as an inside page in the Mustang Mirror. That paper also printed the Yukon Review. The editors decided not to run my article, but our band instructor learned of it and chewed me out in front of the class before telling me to get out. I believe he then said he was so mad that he couldn't teach, so he had the remaining students sit there with their instruments in their laps.
OS (that stands for older sister): Oh my!!!!!!!
My younger sister: He did have a temper management problem.
OB (older brother… you’ve got it): Perhaps the instructor considered his anecdotes to be off the record. Sounds like a prima donna.
Me: During one chewing out, the band instructor said that he could have been fired had that story been printed. I had thought it safe for the Mustang paper. The tale did poke fun at the Yukon band director, but I, in my quite limited experience at the time, thought it was in good taste, and my journalism instructor agreed. She said that if he didn't want it quoted, he shouldn't have said it... a common response in those post-Watergate days, and one that thrives today when covering public meetings.
OB: Band directors have thin skin.
Me: I always suspected that one of the newspaper editors must have called my band instructor over the article, for he didn't learn its contents prior to publication from me or anyone else in our J-class. After this, the band instructor said that I had to clear all articles on the band with him before publication... so I stopped writing them. My J-teacher agreed. She still had that job when I visited class during my college days…. Needless to say, that was my last year of band.
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intetlude... time to visit the concession stand...
Me: Here's another funny band story. I don't remember how it happened, but somehow early in my freshman year, my mother and I ended up at the Oklahoma City store that sold our MHS band jacket emblems. Impressed, she bought me the jacket and patches, she naturally sewed them in place, and I wore it to school – only to be accosted by other band members. That's when I learned that those patches were meant to be earned, not bought, and since our band instructor never had tryouts (he knew all the returning students and put them where he wanted them, leaving freshmen at the bottom), these patches were usually reserved for jazz band members. Apparently no one knew that you could simply buy the patches, but after seeing me, several others did, and life went on. That longtime instructor retired after my freshman year. When the new instructors instituted tryouts my sophomore year, I won first chair. No one questioned the patches after that. Mom remained ever proud of that jacket, even after I dropped band, and while I was in college she had it cleaned. And thus, it remains in my closet, in that decades-old drycleaning bag.
…And so, it remains seven years later, snug in its plastic bag. It’s been nearly a half-century since I graduated from those halls… I wonder if that jacket still fits?
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