The New Tuba Cases Are Here !!!

            As a brief tribute to Steve Martin in “The Jerk”, “The new tuba cases are here.  The new tuba cases are here!”.  The band at Houston has been using sousaphone cases that were in such bad shape and so old they may have been manufactured by John Philip Sousa himself.  As was noted in a previous epistle, I have been raising money through donations to pay the $5,400 necessary to purchase these cases.  Ex-tuba players are notoriously cheap and I have ended up short of my goal.  Nonetheless, I ordered the cases and they are in.  My options are to leave the balance on my credit card and hope Amy pays for them or to have a fundraiser.  To that end, and knowing that not much gets by my wife, we are having a TRIVIA NIGHT on Friday, November 10, at 7:00 p.m. in the band room at Houston. 

            For those who are unfamiliar with our trivia night procedures, they are simple.  On that night, you need to arrive at the band hall just a little before 7:00.  The cost of participating is a mere $10.  You will join up with others to make teams no larger than 10 members each.  We will do 10 rounds of 10 questions each and award some sort of prize to the winning team.   Questions will come in categories like, “Things That Taste Like Chicken”, “Words That Rhyme With Mulroy”, and “How Many Nesvicks Does That Weigh”.  And now a quick story:

            We were having a trivia night some years back and some serious trivia players came as a team.  These were non-band, bar room trivia aficionados who expected to win.  At the end of regulation, they were tied with a rather rag tag group of band kids and parents.  The tiebreaker question was, “What’s the first thing you know?”  The serious team put their heads together and came up with what they thought to be a serious answer backed up by science and common sense.  Their answer was, “Your mother’s voice”.   The band team gave the correct answer, “Ol’ Jed’s a Millionaire”.  The serious folks never returned and the morale of the story is:  Don’t Be Too Serious!

We will have limited concessions (drinks, candy, pizza, caviar, road-kill).  The whole thing takes a little over 2 hours and can be lots of fun.  What I need is a lot of bodies to show up so ask your friends, former band mates, neighbors and pets.  At some point I will post a Sign-Up Genius asking for help with setting up, cleaning up, concessions selling, and score keeping.  Until then, please make plans to attend on Friday, November 10.  The thought of me sitting alone in the band room trying to figure out how to tell my wife we are now the proud owner of sousaphone cases should be motivation enough.  If you can’t make it and want to donate using the PayPal button on this blog, please do!  I hope to see many of you in November!