bluecoats88

Anyone remember 88 suncoast when they still had the single rifle toss of about 80yrds? at one show the person (can't remember if it was a guy or girl) missed the catch and the rifle cracked him/her in the head and knocked him/her out and there was a bit of blood from the gash too. they pulled that toss out of the show after that i believe. man that must have hurt :(

in 84 at our first show after folding the previous season we had a little mishap. our dm forgot to give a horns up before he started the show. the drum line didn't realize the horns weren't up so we started the show, when we didn't hear the horns after the first four bars we repated them and the horn line then came in. the hons up at the beginning of the show was taken out after that in favor of the horns going up during the dm's countoff for the opener. not a bad little recovery for a corps full of rookies at their first show.

There was a corps from Michigan up until about the early 90's called Northern Aurora, which I believe was the result of a merger between two other corps or else was what the Northernaires had evolved into. Northern and Aurora are the names of two brands of toilet paper :) northern aurora used to be the saginaires, from saginaw michigan. not sure why they changed their name, but it happened in the mid eighties

also this year at allentown when the rifle toss landed on the horn players horn in the middle of cavies show.

did you happen to notice the one rifle that bounced up and hit the soprano soloist (steve) right in the head. you can see his helmet go crooked - but he didn't even crack the note, although you do hear it waver just a tad.

True there aren't any currently on the field, but there have been: Black Knights, Illinois Black Gold, Oklahoma Black Watch, Washington Black Watch, New Jersey Just in case someone is considering starting a colorful corps, here are a few names that I came up with: The Silver Foxes (Senior Corps from Florida) The Golden Steers (somewhere in Texas) The Purple Lancers (sponsored by Prince) and my favorite The Pink Flamingos (from Miami) the purple lancers made finals in the 70's they were from new york

as a bass player you'd never get a tan on your front because the bass blocked most of your body. and my feet still don't tan to this day, even when i go to the beach.

Not in 88 Vic. Yes bob and Jim wrote in 87, but in 88 charlie wrote a new book, all except for the drum to drum section which he kept the same as 87.

Here's a story that is along the same lines as part of your story. In 1988 we had a number of shows with BD and our two hornlines started getting along very well to the point that they would exchange bags of candy on retreat with each other. Well at finals retreat we happened to be set up next to BD on the field and since the placements for semi's were not announced that year BD didn't know that they weren't still undefeated going into finals, so they were pretty much expecting to win that year. Well we all know that Madison took the crown. A mellophone player in our corps, after the announcement of scores and such, happened to look over at BDs horn line and noticed an alto player. He watched her take of her gloves and shoes to place on the field (she was obviously aging out that year), and when she squated down to put them on the field he noticed she just started sobbing. He stepped out of ranks and walked over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder, she stood up, gave him a long hug while crying on his shoulder and all she said was - "seven years and this is how it ends" Now we had a rather rough season that year and by the end of tour all of us were so burned out that we just couldn't wait for the season to end, and when that mellophone player recounted the story of the girl in BDs horn line on our bus ride home it really hit home to me. you see I had been with the corps for 7 year, it was my age out year, and I just realized that my last season as a bluecoat ended with my wishing the last week or so would just get over with. Needless to say I started crying on my bus partner's shoulder right then and there because "seven years and that's how it ended"

Actually my brother got me into the Bluecoats. He marched from 1979-1982 (he joined in 79 but they folded that year) He introduced me to corps and then I joined in 1982. 83 we folded again but when the corps started again I was there. He tried to join midseason in 84 to age out but then his hours at work changed and he wasn't gonna be able to do it. He did support my efforts the whole time I marched and was even a bus driver in my age out year and beyond. One thing I will always remember him for is the week before finals in 1987 when it looked like we were gonna be in he handed me an ohio state flag that he had purchased so we could hang it from our bass drum stack at finals showing the drum corps world that Ohio Drum Corps had finally made finals. I still have that flag, and until recently (i changed jobs) it was hanging in my office.

Rich, I was wondering if your sister aged out that night or if she got a chance to experience the thrill of winning nationals 2 years later (after her brother had won his second)?

Oh man! How could I leave them off the list? Thanks for the correction. It's fixed. well probably cause they did come back as a divII/III corps in the mid 90's. But I think for the purpose of your post they still fit the bill.

I believe you left suncoast sound off your list of corps we've lost 1989-9th (i think it was 9th)

our book was arranged by Frank Dorritie in 1988, and then mid season changes were done by Jay Dawson. Percussion Book by Charlie Poole The original arrangement for Autumn Leaves was written in 1987 and I believe it was Frank that year as well. The Autumn Leaves arrangement is from a hard to find big band album, but unfortunately I can not remember the name of the band. The album was something like "introducing the Stan Mark big band". Steve Popernack or Jay Wise would be able to tell you.