bwsaloum@hotmail.com

I was 11 or 12 when I joined GPM, back in '75. We started at the old national guard armory. We practice marking time and very basic marching. From there we moved to the Methodist Church, and that's when we got our instruments. Taking possession of my soprano was one of the happiest moments of my life. I had a B flat coronet, so initially it was a little bit of a challenge to go from a 3 valve down to 2 valve, with one of them being a rotor, but I eventually got the hang of it. I remember that Mike Herzog arranged all of our music, Brice did the marching and maneuvering, Carolyn handled the flags and rifles and Don, who's last name I can't recall managed percussion. There were a number of other folks who assisted, like Todd Thompson. If I remember correctly, we stayed at the at the church while we were only doing parades. But once we got a few more people and Dr. Musser and the rest of the instructors thought we were ready to start doing exhibition shows, my late mother was able for us to use the empty field between the county home and the airport, when the weather was warm, and we practiced out at Brookhill Center when it was cold. Most of my memories of corps involve the epic sunburn, practicing for 8 to 10 hours a day (which was a lot when you're 12 or 13) and being jammed into one of two old school buses, travelling the great lakes region. Some of the fondest involve Dick Knapp Sr. screaming "Give 'em hell, General!" before we started our show, and the absolute terror of feeling like I was under a microscope, in front of hundreds of people, to the absolute rush of exhilaration from the applause, after we played our last note. I think my absolute favorite was the friendship with all the other corps. We seemed to hang with the Bandette's a lot, one of the all girl corps from Canada at the time, and a couple others, the names escape me at the moment, or the times we'd play "kill frisbie" in the various gym's we stayed in, while we were on the road. I had no clue that a couple hundred grams of plastic could hurt so much, when colliding with your forehead. One of the most meaningful was one of the first time we hit Marion, back when the US Open was THE show. Some of the worst were involved one of the guys getting hurt in Petoski, as he went tumbling down the rows of a natural amphitheater, built into the side of huge hill or playing the same parade music for hours at a time... "Day's of Glory" will be forever etched in my mind, like one of those jingles that get stuck in your mind, that you just can't stop whistling or humming, to the point where you start praying for death. But the two absolute were the day I turned in my soprano and quit and the day I got news of the corps folding. Dr. Musser & Mrs. Musser and Mike Herzog had a huge impact on my life and I don't think I'll ever be able to thank them enough for sharing the world of corps with us.