By Gary Topping–
Reminiscing recently about playing the Las Vegas trombone concerts has gotten me musing over the rest of my musical career, particularly as a Navy musician. For an unmilitary personality like mine, life in the Navy had its stresses, but lighter moments came along often enough to keep me going. This week and next week I will try to regale you with a few of those moments.
I’ll preface all this by pointing out that my Navy career was a bit unusual in a couple of ways. For one thing, I enlisted at age seventeen, and at that young age, recruits were allowed to sign up for only three years instead of the regular four. Old salts in the Navy contemptuously referred to it as a “kiddie cruise,” but that was okay with me; I figured (correctly, as it turned out) that three years was going to be about all the military life I could handle.
My enlistment, after I had passed an audition to guarantee my entry into the Navy music program, began with nine weeks in boot camp at the U. S. Naval Training Center in San Diego, California. From there I spent a year in the Navy Music School in Washington, D.C. When I finished, I learned that there was an opening in the Naval Academy Band in Annapolis, which I applied to audition for. It was not to happen, though, because my orders had already come through to return to San Diego and play in the band at the USNTC where I had gone through boot camp. I spent the last two years of my enlistment, 1960-62, there. So I never set foot on a Navy ship. That was fine, because I wanted to play music, not sail around the world, and I got to play much more music in San Diego that I ever would have aboard ship.
Now to some of the lighter moments.
A (Drum) Major Mess-up
Bands on street parades are led by a drum major, who marches out in front and gives signals by means of a whistle and a pacer, which is a wooden baton about three or four feet long, wrapped in gold braid and having a metal bulb on one end and a metal tip on the other. With those two implements he can order a wide variety of things: start or stop marching, start or stop playing, and turn one way or the other. Good drum majors often learn to twirl that pacer after blowing his whistle and before issuing the command, and it can be pretty spectacular, with that big thing whirling around in circles. Twirling is not mandatory, but as I say, good drum majors often do it because in the tightly regimented military life, it’s one of the few places where a little hot-dogging is permissible.
And twirling is a difficult skill, which beginning drum majors are ill-advised to try.
Dick Bouchard was a trumpet player in the NTC band who one day decided he wanted to become a drum major. A good place to practice that skill was the morning colors ceremony on the base where the flag would be raised at 8:00 sharp every working day morning. The flag pole was located a couple of blocks or so from the band building, and we would send a small skeleton band down there every morning. We would play one march on the way down, the national anthem as the flag was raised, then another march on the way back. The whole thing took less than an hour, and it was good practice, as I say, because there were few commands to issue and almost no audience.
So on this particular morning, we formed up in front of the band building with Dick out ahead. After he got us started, the first thing he had to do was signal a left turn at the intersection a half block up. He blew his whistle and unfortunately attempted to twirl the pacer before giving the left turn command. The pacer slipped out of his hand, flew up in the air, and the bulb came down right on his head. His hat flew one way, his shades flew another, and the pacer started rolling down the street. We executed the turn without his command, while he scrambled all over the intersection trying to pick up his gear. My position was on the right end of the front rank, so I had a high-priced seat for the whole thing, and my very unmilitary reaction—the only thing I could do–was to drop my horn and start laughing. The Three Stooges never did anything that comical.
Dick Bouchard is now deceased. I believe he spent the rest of his career in the Navy music program. And I believe he never again attempted drum-majoring.
Next week:
Screwing Up in San Francisco
Missing in La Mesa
*Gary Topping is a writer and historian living in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the retired archivist for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and has written many books and articles. Signature Books recently published his latest work titled D. Michael Quinn: Mormon Historian
