The weather and the schedule finally caught up with the corps Sunday, as the cloud covered skies in France emitted a wet misty drizzle for the majority of the day - but it couldn't stop the GLASSMEN from taking Europe by storm! The corps was to leave for Calais, France for a parade first thing in the morning, but was delayed due to some complications with the lunch scheduled. So after a hearty morning brunch, the corps departed Saint Quentin at noon for the 2 1/2 hour trip to the coastal city.

Calais is a city of about 75,000 people, overlooking the Strait of Dover, the narrowest point in the English Channel (only 21 miles wide), and as such is the closest French town to England. On a clear day, you can even see the white cliffs of Dover! The center of town is actually a "man-made" island surrounded by water and canals on all sides. Calais is also home to the French side of the Eurotunnel, where the corps passed through on it's first day into Europe.

"Une Experience de la Vie!" The GLASSMEN remained in the city of Saint Quentin for the day to prepare for the big celebration of the local show bands' 100th anniversary. The celebration will last three days, and includes the huge parade and tattoo (drum corps show) today, a second tattoo on Sunday, and a parade and concert in the town square on Monday.

Both the weather and the people have been very lovely and cooperative so far in St. Quentin. The city has a population of about 60,000 people, and is situated in northern france, just north-east of Paris. It found it's beginnings almost two thousand years ago, when a Roman missionary named Quintinus came to the city. The enormous gothic St. Quentin Basilica, built between 1220-1477 now stands over his tomb. It is even said that Joan of Arc had passed through the city only a few months before her tragic death. Though much of the city was destroyed during World War I, some of the buildings avoided much of the damage, including the Basilica and the 15th century gothic style Town Hall (Hôtel de Ville).

The auditorium of Campbell County High School holds pure chaos. Teens and twentysomethings are draped around their temporary living quarters, pounding on drum pads, shimmying into skintight tangerine unitards, polishing black dress shoes, stuffing hair into buns, searching for lost white gloves, rolling trampled sleeping bags, tripping on gigantic duffel bags and shoving hunks of frozen fruit into their mouths.

In a few minutes, the same 130 people will be unrecognizable, standing tall in perfect lines on a football field, Lexington's disciplined and focused Southwind Drum Corps. Once in uniform, they don't curse, eat, kiss their mothers or hold hands with their boyfriends.

Appropriately, the corps' show this year is called Duality.

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Under pressure and bright lights and in front of a cheering crowd, the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps performed their 10 and a half minute routine on Faurot Field on Saturday night.

The Scouts pit, percussion and brass crew, clad in spotless white and dark green uniforms and joined by the color guard in yellow, orange and maroon, competed against six other drum corps from across the country.

For the 135-member corps from Wisconsin, hundreds of hours of practice were beginning to pay off.

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