I had always wanted to march drum corps, especially after Freddie Martin, my high school's brass instructor (his brother Dan was our band director) invited me to Spirit's open house in November, 1997. I went, and was hooked. Unfortunately, circumstances came up after graduating hs in 98, and I couldn't march.
Fast forward to October of 2000. I was at the Cobb County Exhibition for High School bands, held at McEachern High School, the same school which now hosts the Atlanta Brass Classic. I was in the stands with a friend of mine who had just aged out of Spirit. The last band before intermission had just finished, and we were watching them march off the field. A big giant of a man, who I later found out was Big Ken (Huff), was on the track talking to a judge. He was wearing his CorpsVets jacket, which, at his size, was the size of a billboard. I looked over to my friend I was with, and said "CorpsVets? Senior Drum Corps? What the #### is that?" He looked back at me with a big grin and said "That's the drum corps we're joining this year!"
"Nah, you just aged out. You can't march anymore. Besides, I can't take the summer off." He then proceeded to tell me about this thing called senior corps, where it didn't matter how old you were. I rushed home after the show, hopped on the internet, and started reading about the CorpsVets. I was shocked. I had no idea! I couldn't wait for November and open house to arrive.
When it finally did, we rolled up an hour late. (For those that knew Paul and me, that was actually early!) The corps was in stretching block outside. They stopped the stretches, introduced themselves to us, and pointed us to our section. After playing my first note in horn arc, I was hooked! I finally saw my first senior corps show after someone taped our first runthrough.