May 13, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 19
By Sam Lowe
At 7:19 p.m. on Saturday, October 11, 1981, the Arizona State University Sun Devil Marching Band was poised at the south end of the football stadium, ready to start the pre-game show. Most of the musicians exuded confidence, a natural aftereffect of having gone through this procedure many times before. But a substitute piccolo player in the back row was sweating and remembering that he was once demoted in a kindergarten rhythm band due to an inability to play the triangle in time with the others.
That created tension because I was the piccolo player, dressed in marching band attire and carrying a piccolo with no idea how to play one. But it was too late to get out of this. The others were marching. I must follow. I must follow them exactly or be the butt of a lot of jokes back at the office come Monday.
Ten thousand thoughts churned through my mind. “… sixty four steps forward, two-count turn to the left … No! No! That's wrong! Dummy! You know this! It's sixty two steps forward, four-count turn to the left … step ankle to knee … ankle to knee … ankle to knee … or is this where I glide and slide to the side? … What in the hell am I doing out here anyway? … ”
No turning back, though. The whistle blew and about three hundred young people and one older person snapped tubas, reeds, horns, drums, cymbals, flutes, batons and other musical accessories into position and stepped off in rapid cadence toward mid-field. The flags bearers led the way, strutting with absolute perfection, their gaily-colored standards waving and fluttering, their steps precise and measured in complete accord with the music behind them.
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The musicians, except for one, played “Maroon and Gold,” the university's theme song. But I, the dissident, did not play. I was counting. Aloud, but muffled. Fortunately, marching bands make enough noise so that nobody's going to notice a piccolo player mouthing words. So I marched and counted. “ … one, two three, four, left, right, hit the yard line on eight, nine … ” And thought of Debbie Roush.
She should have been here. She'd be so proud.
But it was best that she wasn't. What if I messed up? She'd give me that look of disappointment that spurred me on during those extended practice sessions we shared.
We met about a month earlier on what looked like a football practice field but actually was a band practice field. Hard to tell the difference. Both have white yard markers, end zones and sideline boundaries. Dr. Robert Fleming, the band director whose task was to evoke the majestic thunders and the graceful lilts from the young musicians, introduced us one day in late September. Debbie was going to miss the Washington State game to attend a wedding; Fleming agreed to let me take her place. He initially expressed some doubt about a newspaper columnist's ability to play any instrument, much less one that required as much expertise and breath control as the piccolo. But eventually, his need for someone to fill Debbie's spot overcame such fear. The relationship did not start well.
On the first day of practice, Debbie led me to a predetermined spot, lined me up with Squad Four, told me to put my hands behind my head and informed me that it was warmup time. I resisted. “How do you expect me
to play the piccolo with my hands behind my head?” I asked not altogether facetiously. It seemed like a logical question. I had watched several musicians warm up before and they never put their hands in back of their heads unless it was to get a cigarette out from behind an ear. Debbie was firm. “First, you have to get loose,” she replied as one of the students up front started counting. The other musicians, the real musicians, began twisting and turning and I felt like someone had betrayed me. “It's a trick!” I grumbled. “A lousy trick to get me to exercise!” and I pointed out that it was September in Arizona and there was already
The Piccolo Continued on Page 2
sweat on my T-shirt and I hadn't played a single note yet.
Debbie smiled but made no attempt to stop the warm-ups, not even for a sweating newspaper columnist whose major form of exercise consisted of pushing the buttons on his phone back at an air-conditioned office. So we exercised and got loose.
It had occurred to me, before this adventure even began, that playing in a marching band can get to be work. Over the next two weeks, this would become a hardened belief. The practice sessions weren't brutal, just tough. Every weekday