When the Class of ‘67 gang got together over the weekend, someone mentioned how our hometown’s high school band has shrunk considerably since the good ol’ days, which led to my story about the band’s flag team at the school where I used to teach.Frequently, I’d walk through the commons area to get to my car at the end of the workday and come across the eight flag gals practicing. Some days they were tossing the poles to each other, so I’d take care to keep out of the line of fire.
“Why aren’t you outside practicing?” I finally asked one day.
I can’t recall the answer, but my question should have been heeded.
The night of their big football halftime presentation was super windy, probably 30 miles per hour or so. The eight flag girls lined up on each 40-yard line, four to a line, and the little band was in between them. The flag-ettes were gamely twirling their banners until the band’s crescendo, at which time the dramatic pole toss was executed--well, sort of. A wind gust made the north flags soar well over the south flag girls’ heads, and the flags headed north stopped dead midway and dropped onto the band members.
Not a single flag was caught, like it was so easily done in the commons. I can remember a saxophonist, J, getting clipped in the head with one of the poles, startling him. But that was only the beginning. When the south girls rushed into the band’s space to pick up their wayward flags, one of them blindly turned with her pole and whacked it below the waist of our already bonked saxophone player. A double whammy! He winced. Everyone in the crowd who saw the accident winced along with him.
When J. came to class on the following Monday, I suggested he wear football body padding and a helmet if the flag girls were going to try anymore aerodynamics near his saxophone. It’s no wonder marching bands have gotten smaller over the years. It’s not the reduced enrollment, jobs, or other activities that are responsible for the decline in numbers. Those deadly flag teams have been scaring everybody away!
1 comment:
Hey I was a band nerd and I remember after the pre-game show we would run and line up in a tunnel to play the fight song for the players to run through....at this particular game we took off running and the girl next to me had lost the bottom half of her clarinet on the field ...the players were already running on, when she realized what happened. It was absolutely hilarious. She asked me to help he go find it, but I was unable to do so in my fit of laughter.
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