Jaminbenb
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Posts posted by Jaminbenb
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So do they have Bens cooler?
And Ruth's cymbals.....
My old percussion toys....
A bunch of old McDonald's flags....
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Reading on...
"After locating and purchasing the horns of the defunct California Dons, Carolina Crown began recruiting members."
Well done, Ben. So I guess Westshore has a very indirect link to Crown. WOW.
Cool! Another reason to like them!
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Crown wasnt out until 1990
Sure they weren't some sort of parade corps start up thing? I mean everyone can't be Spirit, and make top 25 their first year....
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Ok. ya learn something new....
Someone put a query on FB:
Ok so random question? How many people here have marched for a corps that is no longer around in any way....
So I put where I was, and after a while, I got a notification that someone responded to it.. and I opened it and it was a guy that marched in the California Dons...so I said "Hey you're one of the guys that got our equipment! And he said that in 86 Carolina Crown got it from them! hahahaha!
Small world, huh?
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I just remember back when I marched that there was a show in Danville either the last weekend of May/first weekend of June that was always an exhibition...just sort of got everyone's first show jitters out of the way, and let you perform in front of a crowd. IIRC, most of the judges were usually there just giving us the once over, and it was just a great night to start the season.
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You bring the Troegs... I'll bring the Heavy Seas!!!
Two Mad Elf's and I think you'll spill your guts on a lot of things!!! (and bring Brenda...once you're out cold, we can exchange pleasantries with her!)
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Come on Fran you've told it before
Yeah, I have.
But no more... not on a public forum.
i understand.
grump
LOL
Beers at Jeff's, then?
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It's a different era, guys.
Some of the "back in the day" stuff is best left for private consumption. Moving on.
we all have those....
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Might leave the "parking attendant" story in the vault!!!
Bummer! Come on George! You can do it!
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The pro golfer Laura Davies?
Yeah.... I wasn't aware that the LKO was in town, and I was standing ready to leave with a few friends at a Your Place while someone was hitting the men's room...and bumped into this rather "thick" lady coming in and said "excuse me" she said (with a British-like accent) "no problem, anytime!" and winked at me! I just smiled and kept going....never realized that it was her until after we got into my friends car and saw one of the "LKO" vehicles that one of the local car dealers supplies...and my one friend said "I THINK THAT WAS LAURA DAVIES THAT WINKED AT YOU?!?!?!" And we're pretty sure it was!
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free beer on the way back to the truck was always good
I just remember the one year when we got back to Hershey High's parking lot, there was a small pickup truck filled with ice and beer!!
I also remember one year (I don't think it was corps related, though) that Laura Davies was flirting with me at Your Place!
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I remember marching down the fairway at Hershey for the Lady's Keystone Open, then being given beer on our way back to the truck
Yeah, that was always a nice Sunday!!!
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When Larry decided after 83 he was done the corps was 8 grand in the red. That was a lot then
Heard it was significant...which was why he "had to sell" but didn't know the amount.... That was in an overheard conversation when I was working with Carlisle...
Warehouse until the need to display happens
So no display in some case in some "office"?
He was big with nja
Yeah.... I remember hearing the name way back...but never knew 99% of the judges back in those "daze"
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I'd like to know what our Fairfax, VA July 4th parade/exhibition brought in...If anything Hershman probably pulled in a decent amount! I think when we did the Carlisle fireworks, that was just free use of their stadium for an entire day...
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That '82 Connecticut show on Sunday... that was the day chief judge John Collum collapsed on the field while we were performing, and died later that day. He had been battling cancer, and I'm guessing the illness just took its toll on him.
He went down right in front of us, on the side of the drill I was on... I will never forget that.
John was a great guy... my brother was good friends with him, as were some others in the corps. That sight of him going down really shook us up.
Not sure I remember that one off the bat... just looked at my 82 schedule, and we had no Connecticut shows... I do remember his name, though...
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My 82 & 83 schedules each had about 25-30 performances...and NOT including the concerts at the beginning of the season!
I agree...those Sunday shows were a HUGE pain...although if they weren't competitions, we could usually get away with having a few before hand, and most of the times, the shenanigans was pretty high effort! One show we were so drunk that we stopped at a spot in the show and one of the guys said "hey we're supposed to be up there!" and started walking up and motioning for the rest of us to follow!
That's sort of why I was planning on taking a break in 1984, it was just getting to be too much after working all week, then having to devote the whole Friday-Saturday-Sunday thing...and occasional Wednesday sectionals... no time to do anything else...
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The trophies are back with the historical society. Pic on Facebook of Dad with 78 AL and me with 96
Do they have them on a display? Or are they just in some back room?
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Well, it was bunch of things in the stew that started bumping off so many corps.
Competition got better
Competitive scholastic programs supplanted many of these corps
Rising costs for travel, staff, etc.
The National Touring model can't be blamed as much as it gets blamed. Most of the corps were killed off while there were still regional organizations like DCE, DCM, ODCA, FAMQ (hope I got the Quebec one right), Garden State where you could go to local contests
Problems with many of the sponsoring organizations- the sponsors like the Boys and Girls Clubs, the CYO, the PAL, the WFW and AL posts- they just didn't have that kind of money to toss in the bucket anymore.
Corps going co-ed IMHO killed off all of the all-girl organizations as much as any monetary issues- that accounts for the Mello-Dears, the Bon-Bon Girls, the Ventures, and St. Ignatius alone... (Les Chats became the co-ed Connexion Quebec and went on for a season or two and then folded...)
It also just got evolved where it wasn't as easy to take kids off the street, train them, and put something competitive out there.
Heck I just look at the old schedules I have, and remember how many shows we had during the year! Last weekend of May you had Danville's exhibition on Saturday, and the Clifton show on Sunday...how many times during the year did you have an over-nighter with a show Saturday night, and one Sunday afternoon? Or even some exhibition somewhere? I see the schedules NOW, and feel bad for the corps because they only get a third of the contests that we ever had! Almost doesn't seem worth it!
I also remember how many local shows we had, too...Hershey, Mechanicsburg,Carlisle, Scranton, Lewisburg, Reading...my parents got to see me several times during the season, as well as prelims and finals...
People had ways of making money for their corps, and they were pretty self sustaining...ok, maybe some had help from their local legion or something, but still..there was a lot of work for everyone!
One thing that I noticed at about the time I was getting out of the whole teaching thing, was that the kids just weren't as into it as they were when we were young, and into it... the kids just had a "my parent's want me to do this" attitude, and as it got to the point where even getting a grade for band was getting eliminated, it got even worse in some places.
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Looking at the pic and left hand position on the horn players are all over the place. Guessing piston/rotor horns but that left hand would stay with the rotor. And Hair stuff like says I'd say 70s or some time but who..... Wonder if I post on FB.
Hard to say...it was just a surprise when I saw it...never saw that one before...
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As for John B., to put it charitably, he's always had serious problems relating well with others. It wasn't easy dealing with him a lot as a kid and I tried to studiously avoid him as much as possible off the field. 'Nuff said on that subject.
More I can say but
All said the guy could play and was a bright person, but just doesn't work well with others.
I honestly never had an issue with him...although I wasn't in his "section" so I didn't get to experience him as much... I always had a great time with his brothers....Sat with both Brian and Mark on the bus for a few years...
But JB's attitude and mine didn't mesh that day...no biggie...
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Yeah...I was thinking that it might have been that one uniform that was at the display a few years back, but you're right...color WOULD be helpful! (the fact that the shields on the shako's are different is also weird...)
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Percussion wasn't the whole issue with 1983. Morale took a hit. Some of the ringchasers really sowed discontent within the corps that we didn't have the year before. Things happened at rehearsals I'm still angry about. I'm still angry about nearly coming to blows with corpsmates at Bucknell because everyone tried to blame me for the drill problem caused by a "THIS IS MY SPOT IN THE BOOK AND I AM RIGHT" ringchaser. I'd LOVE to see that 1983 prelims video again and Iso that section in "No More Blues" so everyone can clearly see WHO it was who blew that form out the wazoo. I know that happened at Prelims again as it did at Bucknell and saw it the one time on the video when it was shown to the corps post-season. All I know is unless I'm 4 feet 11 inches tall it ain't me 2 steps out of the form, folks. Things happened on the bus that still honk me off. The bus things are traced to the one person I tried to choke to death in my sleep on the one trip.
I don't mind getting grief for my own error, I do get very offended by being blamed for someone else.
The guys from out West were GREAT! The Erie and Steel crew that came to us were always ready to do the job in the way it was meant to be done.
I'll get to that later. I've been on record saying this and I'll say this again:
That 1983 Hornline was by far the BEST hornline I played with by far. We played way out of our minds. but you know what? I had a lot more fun with the 6 week corps in 1984 that finished 15th. People treated each other right... and you can bet the ringchasers weren't interested in that effort, so they weren't there to drag us down. I have a real fondness for that group getting done what it got done.
Yeah..83 DID have its issues with the ringchasers...but the drumline had its major issues because RM dropped the ball big time, and the drums were about a month behind on getting to "that level"... I also remember after getting our solid 4th in prelims, a lot of us had just a horrible attitude and decided that no matter what we did, we were getting fourth, so we did a little in between shows party, and pizzed off a few people...but we were on a "why bother"!?!? (John Bowling and I had a nasty discussion in the hallway of the hotel that ended better than it started, but I think I got him onto our side of the fence...)
And yeah, that was a great hornline! The thing is when you listen to 82 and 83, you can tell that the corps turned a corner...and I really think that if the 84 thing never happened, it would have been another good year! (although, I was burnt out, (and fed up) and wasn't coming back)
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that I know of just what I have in the unedited article that starts this off
Ok..was just curious if there were any other historical things.... Btw...I was bored yesterday, and I looked to see what CD's may be around... just the one on E-Bay and this was the picture...no other info...
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That '82 season... our drum line kept us in the game until we learned how to march better.
Marching was our Achilles heel until late that summer.Horn line was solid, and got better as the summer went along. Our brass staff...caption head Dennis Dewey, plus Bob Pearson and and John Arietano... was top-notch.
We had a tough winter for the horn line... low turnouts right into springtime... and thus it took us a bit to get it in gear. At one point during the winter, players from other sections were asked to volunteer to play baritone, where we were hurting for numbers. And by "numbers" I mean trying to put together more than five baris or so. LOL. At least three people volunteered to make the switch, and that helped.
Ours was always our weak spot...we had good sections, but never a full section that just kicked everyone's butt! The first few years it was all snare..80 we had a great timp line and bass line... 81, nothing...82 sort of half tom, half snare...83 just toms....If we ever got the whole thing on one page it would have been great! Horn line was always great!
EDIT: Just took a look at the picture....83 had a good bass line as well (except for that one hit in Love for Sale) The snare line had some slackers in it... I also took a gander at 82, and THAT snare line had some SERIOUS slackers... (didn't we try to get someone to not march...or was that 83?)
West Pittston
in DCA All-Age Corps and Alumni Corps Show & Event Reviews
Posted
Hey, I had fun! The fact I ran in to Bob was a BIG plus! Was great playing catch up with him!
This was MY first senior show in a few years, and the fact that it was less than a mile from my in-laws made it an easy stop! (other plans fell through for the weekend, so I made the trip up, and swam most of the day!)
Loved seeing others at the show, and enjoyed what I got to see!