BAND-TASTIC

My oldest great neph Bo participated in the Kansas Shrine Bowl festivities last week. For the third consecutive year, he played in the band, which performed at the Friday night banquet, Saturday morning parade, and Saturday night game. The musicians, all 264 of them, had three days to prepare their programs, so it’s kind of like Band Concentration Camp. I don’t know how in the world the director and his nine assistants were able to whip them into shape. I’ve taught teenagers. Heck, I WAS a teenager back in another lifetime. I know how totally squirrelly they can be. But, miracle of miracles, these kids got their act together and were just as good as any college band I’ve seen. The Flaming Bore says, “Bravo! Encore!”

Bo has the misfortune to play the sousaphone (my opinion only, since my weary back refuses to haul around anything heavier than a flute). When he was younger, he hoped to be a drummer in the middle school band, but there was a need for a sousaphone player. He was the biggest kid in the class, so he got the automatic nomination. Lucky him. Especially lucky on days like this past week when the temperatures were in the upper 90’s. I can’t imagine how hellish it must have been to march, and sometimes even run, with a heavy, body-strangling sousaphone. Big kid or not. I would have been begging for mercy.

As it turns out, though, Bo has kind of taken to the instrument, and it has opened up, figuratively, a few doors of success for him. At the Friday night banquet, after we chowed down on some mighty fine food with the Shriner Poobahs, five of the teen participants gave little speeches, called “perspectives,” and Bo was asked (last spring) to be the band speaker. Now, this wasn’t like getting up in front of a high school speech class. No, no. We’re talking over 1,200 people in the audience and five large-screens at various corners of the gym that zoomed in on the lectern so the speakers could be “blown up.” (see picture above) No pressure at all.

Bo’s mom and grandma were a nervous wreck. Especially when the Shriner Grand Poobah skipped over him on the program. “What the hell’s wrong?” my niece whispered to me. Surely he hadn’t bailed out at the last minute or left his speech at the dorm. Where was he? But, eventually, Bo’s name was called and he moseyed up to the lectern to a standing ovation from his fellow bandmates. You can say what you want about band geeks, but they stick together.

Would Bo take one look at the crowd and become a deer in headlights? Talk too fast? Not talk loudly enough? Forget how to read? Puke into the microphone? Nope, I’m happy to say he did just fine. When he made a little goof at the beginning, he recovered nicely. When he did a little T-shirt sales spiel at the end, which was not in the script but a request from a Poobah, people laughed. And, of course, the band gave him another standing ovation when he was done. After the banquet, people came up to him with compliments. A star is born.

Still, I felt pretty sure that this would be the end of Bo’s Shrine Band experiences. Three times is enough. For a kid whose usual activities involve sitting in front of a computer pushing around a little mouse, it’s pretty grueling, even if the practices and performances just last for five days. I talked with him after the parade; he was one drippy ball of sweat. He looked physically ready to wave a white flag. But when I spoke with him yesterday, he was already talking about “next year” when the Shrine Bowl is in Hays. Those Poobahs sure must know how to throw a party.