What Happened -vs- What We Remember

            25 years of Superior ratings at concert festival and over 50 Overall Championships in Marching Band and, with very few exceptions, I have no firm memories of the actual moment of winning or losing.  I do, however, remember a whole host of little things that happened on those days and here are a few:

            The Miss Saigon show (95?) had a really successful year.  We had won all 4 of the contests we had entered going into the contest at Halle Stadium.  That contest would become known as Bandmasters but was then called the Mid South Marching Invitational.  Our big competition in those days was Bartlett.  I had taught at Shadowlawn Middle before coming to Houston and the kids I started were all in the Bartlett Band.   In the middle of our show was a big battle scene with helicopter and siren sound effects.  All of our electronics were plugged into a huge generator set up down near the endzone and, just as we got to the fight scene, a Bartlett band parent unplugged our stuff.  No sound effects (which we used to cue the drumline back in) resulted in a very confused bunch of Houston band kids.  I remember John Cooke, the Bartlett director, stopping me from getting hands on his parent when I realized what had happened.  “It was an accident ,” they said.  Yeah…… Sure it was.

            We won a contest in Jackson, TN in the early 2000’s.  I don’t remember which show we were doing but I will never forget the performance.  One of our flag captains was Mary Wagner.  She is now a District Court Judge in Tennessee but, back in the day, she was a really fine color guard girl.  Kevin Tabb and I were down front on the sideline when I heard the crowd gasp.  I missed the actual moment that Mary hit herself in the head with a rifle but I did not miss the aftermath.  Her face was absolutely covered in blood.  She looked like a color guard person from a show entitled “Freddy Krueger Meets Jason Vorhees for Saw 8”.  About the time I saw her, she realized how badly she was bleeding and, like all little girls (even ones with rifles) she fainted.  Kevin and I got her to the sideline but, strangely enough, the band kept right on going. 

            We were in Milan, TN after having won their contest and two things happened that were even out of the ordinary for us.  John Cooke, mentioned above as the band director from Bartlett, had a heart attack.  I consider John to be a good friend (he lived and is still going strong, by the way) but come on John, isn’t that taking a loss a bit too hard.  I say that from the point of view of someone who has not won more times that he has won.  After checking on John, I went to where we were loading equipment just in time to see Sue Hong knocked unconscious with a water bottle.  I had told some boys to “pass out” water bottles and so they passed (threw) them and hit Sue on the head.  As the band got loaded to go to a second contest that day, I got in an ambulance to ride to the hospital.  When I got there, I ran into John Cooke’s wife who was so very touched that I had cared enough to come to the hospital to check on John.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her the real story.  Also, reflecting on the Miss Saigon story from 2 paragraphs up, “Karma is a bitch, ain’t it John?”