And one time, at band camp...

A recent post over on Eagle Sports Central, got me to reminiscing about my old Gibbs high school marching band days.

When I was in high school, my mother wouldn't allow me to play football even though I was well suited for it. I could out bench press everyone on the entire Gibbs Football roster, except for Jeff Graves. Me and Jeff were pretty close to the same size and I think he could out-bench me by about 10 lbs or so. But, anyways, mom said that I would "break my neck" playing football. So, instead of putting on a helmet and pads on Friday nights, I put on a band hat and cumber bun. I was first chair trombone, alongside David Peters, Mackie Dyer, and Brian Allison. We had an awesome low brass section.

There were lots of crazy characters in the band. Robby "Tank" Carden, was a big ol guy that I used to hang out with. He played the big bass drum. He was always cutting up and doing crazy things. Ricky Heath, was always making people laugh, I thought he would grow up to be the next John Belushi. One time on the band bus, he took a wire coat hanger, straightened the hook out on it, stuck his head through the hanger opening and went around buzzing like a bee and acting like he was going to sting people. He was a riot!

Our band leader, Ronald "daddy" Kyle, was an awesome teacher. He took his work very seriously and his bands always placed first place in competition. We used to aggravate the crap out of that man. We would play tricks on him and get him mad. He would turn beet red and threaten everyone, then he would go out behind the band room and smoke a cigarette. He probably never knew it, but I always looked up to him. I thought he was one of the best teachers I had ever had. His assistant, Dan Coker, was a laid back guy that seemed more like a 70's hippie guy, he was real cool to be around. Coincidentally, I saw Mr. Kyle on the news this year when a big storm knocked some trees down at his house and crushed his vehicles.

We always had a ball at band camp. One year we had boxing matches (in secret of course). All the guys would sneak away into a room and two guys would go at each other, gloves and all. One of my best buddies and band camp roommate, Edward Bales, was a pretty good sized boy. He did good in the matches until he faced Gareth Henderson. Gareth was my best friend Kevin's cousin. Gareth was wiry but muscular and very fast. He pulverized his victims, Edward included. I felt so bad for him that night, laying in bed aching all over from the boxing match.

Band camp was also our time to sneak around in the dark of the night. We would visit other people's rooms, try to spy on the girls dorms, and have food fights inside our rooms. Some of my friends got into trouble for having a wet Oreo fight in their room. Just imagine dozens of wet Oreo cookies stuck to the walls and ceiling. We also used to flip pats of butter onto the ceiling in the cafeteria. We were quite the hellions back then. At least we weren't shooting anybody!

My very favorite song that we played during my years in the band was "Don't Cry For Me Argentina." It always made me feel so sad. We would end our performance with it and I always felt like crying as we were marching off of the field playing it. Well, except for the time that I mentioned on the Eagles Sports Blog. In that comment I put that it was 1983 but after thinking about it, I believe it was 1982 because I met my Mary in 1983 and quit the band. It was uncomfortable being around my former girlfriend, Dee Dee, after we had broken up, so I quit. But, anyways, here is what happened:

Gibbs was playing away at Carter. It was in October, just before Halloween. I believe the Carter band actually played the theme song to Halloween in their performance. We played the Blues Brothers theme and Don't Cry For Me Argentina, I can't remember what else we played. It had recently rained, and the Carter football field was very muddy and had big ruts in it. We were having a hard time marching because our shoes would start suctioning in the mud. You could hear each "slurp" "slurp" as we would march in time. My shoes were just a little big for me and I kept balling my foot up inside of them to keep them on. Finally I could hold no more. "Slurp, slurp," my shoes left my feet. I couldn't quit marching because it would have ruined our entire performance. I just kept right on, left, right, left, right, hup two, three four. The ground was cold and my feet were freezing. We finally made our exit off of the field and when the last member was on the sidelines, I ran back out onto the field and retrieved my band shoes. What a night!

Well, this post was pretty long but it sure was great thinking of those old times. If you get a chance, you should check out, Gibbs Eagles.net, it is an awesome website for Gibbs High Football. It is ran by, J.J. Spears, the same guy, that runs the Eagle Sports Central blog. He is a '91 graduate of Gibbs and does several sports websites for the school. He does a fantastic job on all of them.