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Judged exhibition at 1975 Baltimore Sr show in old Memorial Stadium. They were actually selling food and drinks during our performance and yelling their wares just like an Orioles game (which matched the pitchers mound on the show field).

So judges tapes had the classics that I remember:

"OK now what you're doing here.." "HOT DOGS GETCHA HOT DOGS " "##### ######"

"Well this must be good. I'm saying must be because the crowd is responding... Me I can't hear a thing because of this ### #### hot dog saleman".

"I enjoyed judging your exhibition. Now before the competition starts I'm going to move to get away from this #### beer salesman so I can hear".

Edited by JimF-LowBari
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In 1977 the Boston Crusaders decided to forgo the second tour and fly directly to Denver to compete in the D.C.I. finals. Some people believe it was our decision to forgo the second tour that cost us our chances of making the finals that year. It was the opinion of some Crusader's that, in forgoing the 2nd tour, we were not competing in front of the national judges and so they were never able to fully appreciate our show. Obviously, we also were not attending the after show critiques to discuss the show with the judges and argue our case for higher scores. Personally, I do believe we would have scored higher than 17th place in the prelims, as did many Crusader fans, but I don't believe we would have made the finals. We were another small Crusader Corp that put out an excellent show.

Anyways, on with the story. The flight to Denver and the shenanigans that were to follow created many a "story" that could and would compete with any previous and future story in the long and storied Crusader history. My favorite was not about our stay in Denver but in our leaving. As Crusader's we were making sure that we were having an optimal experience during our stay and this most definitely included partying and this meant drinking beer. For whatever reason, and I'm sure their were many, we were running late to leave for the airport and this created a mad scramble to get everyone on the bus. Many of us had not finished our beer and so naturally, as was always the case, we took them onto the bus with us. The airport had been informed that we were running late and so the decision was made to allow our buses to drive directly onto the tarmac and directly to the plane. Now the motto of many a Crusader who marched in my time was that we leave no beer behind and so we all boarded the plane with our beer in tow and drank them openly on our flight back to Boston.

The only reason I can think of as to why the airline personnel would allow this to occur is that they must of had previous experiences with various professional sports teams who were allowed to board with beers as well. One should remember that the drinking age in '77 was 18 years old and to be honest their were more than a few under that age who were partaking.

I know I have written previous posts in regards to the Crusader's appreciation of adult beverages during my years marching and I know that some of you didn't appreciate these posts. Some of you voiced your opinions that you felt it was wrong for members of the various Drum Corps to be partying. It is at this time I feel I need to either remind you or inform you that during this time the Boston Crusader's never really considered themselves to be a Drum Corp. We "played" what we smugly referred to as "Bugle Band" but we consider ourselves Boston Crusader's and the Boston Crusader's at that time were a totally different animal from other Drum Corps and this, despite all of our supposed hardships, is one of the main reasons why the Corp never died. We were having too much fun.

Edited by Bsader
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I can and do. Got a great deal of corps-stories and multimedia content on my site/drum_corps

1st post should be a 1996 judges tape a colleague unearthed and rescued from the hall before it was seized and shut down permanently by a tax-collection agency to remain nameless. :ninja:

Was that Ralph Venezia's voice I heard in there???

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