Fran Haring

48? Youngster. :P Fran (49 and creeping up on 50)

Barbara's now at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore..... she began rehab work there Friday. They worked her hard.... three hours' worth of physical, occupational and speech therapy. I was worn out just watching her! :P More rehab work to come tomorrow (Monday). It looks like at some point in the near future, she'll be coming home. :) Then it's on to outpatient rehab. Fran

You know what I like the most about college football this year? Notre Dame is 1-9. Hats off to Charlie W. and the boys for a job well done. B) Fran Lifetime member of the "I Hate Notre Dame" club

I like to see corps trooping the stands, even though from an announcer's perspective, trooping puts a squeeze on the amount of time I have to make a variety of announcements... sponsor mentions, promos of future shows, etc.... simply because it makes no sense at all to try and talk over the crowd as they applaud the corps marching past the stands. But trooping is one of those drum corps traditions that, IMO, has stood the test of time, and I like it.... so I fit in any announcements when I can, usually after a given corps has cleared the main grandstand and stopped their walkoff beat. (It seems that walkoff beats are used more often on the DCA and alumni sides of the drum corps activity.) This year at the DCA Alumni Spectacular exhibition show in Rochester, one of the units... Scout House... played a tune (Colonel Bogey March) while trooping in parade formation, with the crowd clapping along in unison. A lot of fun... and an added touch of pageantry to the event. Fran

LOL !!!! Barbara was "running" that day at Prelims.... collecting the sheets from the field judges. After the Statesmen performed, after that huge American flag had collapsed on top of them during their finale, she showed me one of the sheets..... the judge had written something like, "Your show was going along pretty well until the disaster!!!!" Fran

"Miss Saigon" might be my favorite Statesmen show, but if I had to choose my favorite "Statesmen Moment" it would be the entire "Frank Sinatra" tableau during the 2001 Rat Pack show.... featuring Vince Bruni as Mr. Sinatra. I thought it was a great tribute to Vince, one of the all-time drum corps legends and for many years the heart and soul of the Empire Statesmen. I only wish Vince had won the Best Showmanship Award that year at Finals..... because then, it would have been Vince Bruni presenting the Vince Bruni Showmanship Award to........ Vince Bruni! Fran

Truer words were never written, Al! I'm VERY thankful that: 1) Barbara's still with us, and getting better. 2) I still have some hair left. b**bs Fran

I'm going to work on Wayne to make sure he picks up the tab when we get to Fritzi's next time! :P fran

She'll be the one with the water bottle next to her on stage. :P Fran

OK..... a new thread on how my wife Barbara is doing, since the old thread is probably buried on Page 40 or something like that. :P My apologies in advance if this goes a bit long: She is being moved soon (within the next couple of days, probably) back to Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore, where she will continue her rehab work. Good Sam's rehabilitation program is quite intensive, and when Barbara was first there (not long after she suffered her hemorrhage), she was not ready physically or mentally for the pace of that rehab program.... so she was sent to the rehab center/nursing home where she is now. Since then, she has made enough progress that she is now ready to tackle the more intensive type of therapy offered at Good Samaritan.... the rehab program there is a Johns Hopkins program, so she will be in very good hands. It's been four months since Barbara was first hospitalized, and she is still considered to be within the "prime recovery window" for brain-injury patients..... so this stepped-up rehab program could very well help speed her recovery. I can't predict the future, but I am optimistic about Barbara's chances to make more progress. To be honest, she has already come further than most of us thought she would by this point.... I mean, she has gone from being near death on Day One to where she is now.....so I don't think anything she accomplishes from here on out will surprise me! She is working very, very hard to get better..... and I am very proud of her. :) Meanwhile, we are getting some work done at our house to make things easier for Barbara when she comes home. That will be a great day, without a doubt. Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers....much appreciated. Please keep that positive mojo coming!!!!! Fran

A whole bunch of great Statesmen shows, but at the top of the list..... definitely "Miss Saigon" for me. That was absolutely incredible. Fran

I can see it now: "Porgy and Bess..... The Latin Side" Then again, perhaps not. :P Fran

Fran

If "of all time" means the DCI era, plus pre-DCI, including senior/all-age corps...... way too many moments to narrow it down to one. Just call me Captain Cop-Out. :P Seriously.... a few classic moments that come to mind: SCV's Bottle Dance.... Cadets' Z-pull..... Troopers' sunburst.....NY Skyliners' Traffic Jam...... Hawthorne Caballeros' "Rumps." Fran

There was no Best Soloist award given out at Finals either this year or in 2006. Fran

What Jim said. Best wishes to our neighbors to the south in '08! Fran

OK.... if you're talking about stacking shorter people on top of one another, I can go for that.....LOL Fran

My dad and my father-in-law were both WWII veterans, in the Army Air Corps. In fact, my father-in-law was a POW of the Germans. My mom was a Coast Guard veteran, also during WWII. My brother Marty is an Air Force veteran...... and my nephew Christopher is currently serving his country as a member of the Army. Right now he's in Iraq.... so our family is keeping our fingers crossed for his safe return. Thank God for ALL of our military veterans, and their service to our nation. I salute each and every one of them, past and present. Fran

I think I might have said this either earlier on this thread or somewhere else, but..... I could see expanding mini-corps to 25 playing members plus a conductor.... based on Larry Kerchner's interview in Drum Corps World, in which he said a 25-person ensemble would give arrangers more flexibility. Makes sense to me. But more than 25.....up to 34? No.... not at all. Mini-corps has never been meant to be a way to "bridge the gap" between mini-corps and competition corps. The mini-corps show at DCA's, to me, has always been about fun and audience/member enjoyment first, with competition a distant second. Mini-corps are one thing, competition corps are another thing altogether. Perhaps lowering the minimum size of a corps to 30, instead of increasing the size limits for mini-corps to 34, is a better way to approach this. Just my opinion, since I don't make the rules.....and thank God for that! :P Fran

Holy mackerel...... are you sure you were listening to the right guy?????? :P The only spontaneous speech for me at Finals was the scores.....I made them all up. b**bs J/K of course!!! Seriously....THANK YOU very, very much for the kind words. Yes, both Barbara and I plan to be back on the drum corps trail in 2008. We look forward to seeing all our old (and new) friends! Fran

I would agree with that.....IMO, Brassmen would have been a DCI finalist in 1973, without question.... but they didn't make the trip to the championships. And they had a really good shot at being a finalist in '72 as well.... but they didn't make the trip to DCI's that year, either. Fran

Is it just me, or does it seem that a record has been set in the past day or so in this forum... for reviving the most year-old threads on DCP? :P Fran

Oh man.... he was great! With that classic "Boston sound." Fran

A few, off the top of my head: 1971 World Open Finals: I was a 13-year-old kid, sitting in the stands in awe of the junior "super-corps" of that era: 27th Lancers, SC Vanguard, Blue Rock, Troopers, Kingsmen, Garfield, etc. What a great show that was! 1972 DCA Finals: To this day, that remains one of the best drum corps shows I've ever seen....... the best senior corps of that era at the top of their game, and a serious throwdown between the top five corps: Caballeros, Skyliners, Buccaneers, Crusaders and Hurricanes. Five great corps. And the other seven finalists weren't too shabby, either! 1978 DCA Finals: My second year with the Sunrisers.... we were defending DCA champs, and had put together a great regular season, winning a bunch of shows, some by wide margins, and losing only three times (twice to the Skyliners, once to the Caballeros). To make a long story short, we had a rough day at DCA Prelims in '78..... we were late for our report time, basically rushed onto the field, and never quite got settled in. Soooooo.... we ended up squeaking out a win by .05 over the Caballeros at Prelims.... ironically, it was the same margin by which we won our first DCA title in 1977, over those same Caballeros. Bottom line...... and no offense meant to the Caballeros, who...as usual, and to their credit........ had continued working their butts off and pushed us right till the very end of that 1978 season....pretty much everyone in our corps figured that the Cabs had taken their best shot at us in Prelims, we had done our worst show in many weeks... and we still had won Prelims. We just KNEW we had one more great performance in us, and quite frankly, when we were at our best that summer, we were unstoppable....it was just one of those magical years that corps can have from time to time. So, as far as we were concerned, the pressure was off. In my six years with the Sunrisers, I'm not sure I ever saw us as confident as we were that night in 1978, walking into J. Birney Crum Stadium in Allentown for Finals. Not cocky at all..... just really relaxed and confident. And we NAILED our Finals performance. The first perfect score in DCA history in a General Effect caption that night.... a 10 in GE Brass. Caption awards for Brass, Percussion and GE, and a nearly 3-point win. That was a great night! Fran

Gene Bennett and Mike DeLorenzo at a Sunrisers awards banquet. I'm guessing that might have been after the 1979 season, when Gene retired from his position as Sun's visual designer/caption head. Actually, Mike D. also retired from Sun after the 1979 season. An easy one, Nanci!!!!! Fran