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30 years ago...


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3 decades ago (back when I was skinny and had hair)....was it really 30 years ago today that was the 2nd greatest day of my life? (2nd only to my wedding day 7 years later).

As I sit writing this, approximately 6pm PST...9pm EST, I try to think what we were doing exactly 30 years ago....in the latter stages of warmup, perhaps....at the basketball arena on the opposite side of campus from Grant Field. Trying to get my head in the game for what would be (and still is) the single greatest performance of my musical career...trying to put out of my mind the fact that the next day I would see my fellows scatter to their homes, my roommates back to the Great White North, and having to leave the wonderful atmosphere (and sweat, blood, & tears) that make up a drum corps season, knowing that I would never be able to return, as I was aging out with only one season of drum corps to my name.

I focus on the job, don't frack a single note, feel the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat (as anyone who's read my posts over the years knows all too well!).

Years later, my will will stipulates that a small portion of my ashes are to be placed on my last drill set while a recording of my show blasts over me.

To my fellow 1984 Blue Devils, you were -- each and every one of you -- the greatest collection of musicians it has EVER been my honor to have performed with.

Wayne Downey, Jack Meehan, thank you so much for letting this uber-rook into the brass line and being the best instructors I ever had and giving me some great charts to play....even the 4th sop parts were a blast!

I still have many memories of Aug 18, 1984...the snare line's outfits on the last rehearsal run (my eyes are still burning!), greeting Nadia Younes of the Garfield Cadets in the parking lot (and getting looks of death from some of our vets, as she was "the enemy"), the brass warmup that scared the crap out of Garfield's battery ("NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST!" Loudest I've ever played), the limp I'd somehow developed completely vanishing when we entered the stadium, doing the show and feeling like an absolute GOD when I held my arms in the air after that last note with the crowd going completely out of their mind at what we'd just done.

There were down times as well, of course, the times I thought I was gonna get cut, the surface-of-the-sun heat during the day/Arctic-cold-at-night at Mars, the rehearsal day in Bakersfield when it seemed like the entire corps was going to kill each other...but those are countered by the love we got from the crowd, the awestruck look I got from one girl in Montreal when she learned I'd never marched corps before, the knowledge that I was at my absolute best out on that field.

There is no feeling like that in the world...as we all know....and how much I wish I'd discovered the activity earlier....one season, the one time at the top of the food chain, was not nearly enough.

It was quite a year, and although we didn't quite make the top (84 Garfield...you still have my ring (come on...you all KNOW I'd slip that in!)), I would not trade it for ANYTHING in this universe.

I have 8 total drum corps shows under my belt....I have been an Empire Statesman (1) , a Dagenham Crusader (1), and a SoCal Dreamer (5)....but I am first, foremost, and always a Blue Devil.

Edited by 84BDsop
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1984 was an incredible year, and finals an incredible night.

BD that year, in my humble opinion, put on the greatest performance ever not to win DCI. Including '93 Star.

BTW I agree with Garfield's win - it's still my favorite performance of all times.

Two of the greatest corps laying out their greatest performances.

Anyone that walked away from that show not loving drum corps probably shouldn't have been at that show.

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  • 3 weeks later...

1984 was an incredible year, and finals an incredible night.

BD that year, in my humble opinion, put on the greatest performance ever not to win DCI. Including '93 Star.

BTW I agree with Garfield's win - it's still my favorite performance of all times.

Two of the greatest corps laying out their greatest performances.

Anyone that walked away from that show not loving drum corps probably shouldn't have been at that show.

I would TOTALLY AGREE, and it's a good thing the internet didn't exist back then..lol

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