By Gary Topping–
In which I continue my reminiscences of some of the lighter moments playing in the U.S. Naval Training Center band in San Diego, 1960-62. . . .
Screwing Up in San Francisco
Our band was very busy during most of the year. Rare was the weekend that we did not have a concert or parade or some such thing. We rehearsed a lot and had a pretty high public presence. Most of our gigs were in the San Diego area, but we made longer trips as well, often to Los Angeles and even farther on occasion. One longer trip I never understood was an annual bus journey to Ensenada, Mexico for the conclusion of a sailboat race from Los Angeles (what did the Navy band have to do with that?).
And one time they flew us all the way up to San Francisco and put us up for a couple of nights at the Naval base on Treasure Island. The next day we played a parade that began at the Embarcadero and went up Market Street for what seemed like about forty miles. I cannot remember what the occasion was, but it was a very big deal. The crowds were so huge on those narrow San Francisco streets that they simply could not be contained on the sidewalks and spilled way out onto the streets so that we had to close ranks almost to the point where we were rubbing shoulders. The crowds were rowdy and noisy, too, so that I wondered if they could even hear us playing. The parade lineup, too, was long and complicated with all kinds of other bands and floats that extended for miles, meaning that we often just had to stop and wait until enough space opened up ahead of us that we had a reasonable time to march and play before we had to stop again.
It was, in short, a drum major’s nightmare. Our drum major that day was Ed Wiltanger, a career Navy guy who was ordinarily one of our first clarinets, but this day we needed his long experience as a drum major more than we needed his clarinet playing. It was stop and go, stop and go, and Ed handled it like the pro he was.
On all of those long parades, we played a rotation of about three marches (more on that in the next story) to keep from going out of our minds playing the same one over and over again. They were all easy, familiar marches and all of us had our parts memorized so we didn’t need to fuss with any sheet music. But every time we drew close to the reviewing stand, the drum major would turn around and give the voice command to abort the rotation and switch to “Anchors Aweigh,” the Navy anthem.
Alas, at one point well along on this particular parade route, miscommunication tripped us up. After we had been stopped for a while, Ed turned around and gave the voice command, “Step off playing,” which meant that we would begin the next march in the rotation when he gave the signal to start marching. It was up to those of us in the front ranks to pass the word to those in back, but the crowd noise was so great that they misheard and thought that Ed had said “Anchors Aweigh” (the two commands sound confusingly similar). When we stepped off playing, those of us in front were playing the next march and those in back were playing “Anchors Aweigh”! I never heard such cacophony in my life, and Ed was frantically whistling and waving his pacer to cut us off. It was so ridiculous that once again my unmilitary instinct took over and I just dropped my horn and burst out laughing.
Missing in La Mesa
La Mesa, California is an eastern suburb of San Diego way out next to the desert. It gets very hot out there in the summer, and every summer we had one of our biggest events there, the Mother Goose parade. I can’t remember, if I ever knew, what Mother Goose had to do with it, but I vividly remember what an ordeal the parade was—long and hot.
At every parade one of the bandmasters was with us, a Chief Petty Officer otherwise responsible for conducting the band. We had about five of them most of the time I was there. On parades, though, the drum major actually led the band and the bandmaster did nothing but march alongside the front rank. He was just there in case something came up that required an executive decision, something I never saw happen.
I mentioned earlier that we played about three marches in rotation, then “Anchors Aweigh” when we passed the reviewing stand. I always admired the skill of those bandmasters in choosing marches that were easy, yet sounded great. The last thing we wanted to worry about in the face of the heat and length of the Mother Goose parade was wrestling with some musical challenge as well.
The bandmaster on this particular day was Chief Springer (I regret I’ve forgotten his first name). He was a very nice guy with a good sense of humor and about as laid-back as any of those guys ever got. I liked him a lot, and he liked me. As usual, my position that day was at the right end of the first rank, which meant that he was marching right beside me. It also meant that every note I played went right into his left ear (which is why he earned the big bucks, I guess).
Alas, at one point deep into the parade route about an hour or so—I missed a note! Now in all modesty I have to say that I was a very good musician in those days, and I just did not miss notes, especially in those easy street marches! But I probably just rolled my eyes and hoped nobody was listening that closely—music critics were not a big part of our audiences.
When we finished that march and were just silently marching along to the drum cadence, Springer moved over a little closer to me. With his eyes straight ahead and resolutely marching along, he said, “I heard that, Topping.” He couldn’t miss the chance to tease me, and I just cracked up.
Years later, and with my military days thankfully long behind me, I still look back fondly on those guys like Chief Springer, who knew how to keep things light.
*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
