Now that they're back home

[bawker]

(bump)

...and check it out:

One of our first "starred threads" here. :)

[Stellathediningdiva]

It's a little silly but when I returned home from Spring Training on the food truck I came up with another silly top ten list. Hope you enjoy it.

You Know You’ve Been on Volunteering on a Drum Corps Food Truck If:

1. You immediately start loading forty loaves of bread into your shopping cart even though you’re home and feeding a family of three.

2. You open the fridge and holler to no one in particular: “We need to make a run for milk and juice, we’re short on butter and there are only three bags of eggs – do you think that will get us through breakfast?”

3. You insist on serving every meal you cook, including breakfast, with peanut butter and jelly sandwich appetizers.

4. Your husband wakes you from fitful sleep and you wake up drenched and tell him, “I was having the worst nightmare. We had it all on the tables and realized we’d forgotten to do something for the vegetarians!”

5. You have scrambled eggs in your shoelaces (Thanks Patty) and bleach stains on the hem of all of your “tour” t-shirts and your idea of heaven is sneaking off for 10 minutes in a luke-warm shower.

6. At 10 pm, for no apparent reason your feet start to swell and ache and you pop two ibuprofen tablets (generic brand) from a jumbo bottle of 750 tablets that you were compelled to buy.

7. You grab dishes off the dinner table and start washing them by hand immediately so you can empty the sink for the second wave, even though you have a dishwasher.

8. Your family is still trying to figure out why you holler “Seconds” 30 minutes into every meal.

9. Once a week you feel the need to clean out all the leftovers in your fridge, toss it in pans and put it in the oven and spread it out on the table at 11 p.m. and insist your family eats snack because you’re tossing anything that doesn’t go.

10. People ask you how many kids you have and you say “135 or so, plus staff” and I love them all like they’re my own.

I missed it after she came home early this year. Sadly, it seems my marcher's knee will preclude any further marching seasons for us -- we have this idea that she'd like to still be able to walk when she's 22. Still, it's a fond memory. Isn't it amazing how you can bond over a 5 gallon bucket of potato peelings with other workers who had been strangers the day you arrived?

Been there, living it! No one else will even consider "calling seconds" 'cause that's my job!

I love # 10 also!

[Michael Boo]

Hey Mike, I have an idea.

Why don't you just.. you know.. write it? There's a LOT of information and many funny stories and anecdotes here.. it's a great start of something.. for more details, you could just PM people and .. I don't know.. interview them?

It's your column.. write it!

Stef

I don't lift from DCP material as I have too much respect for DCP. I've had contact with DCP contributors before (several times) and have run stuff from them if it was rewritten to not infringe on what they already did for DCP.

But thanks for the journalistic suggestions.

[ScoutSpinner03]

I walk faster

I eat faster

I think quick on my feet

I "figure it out"

I feel sorry for people who spent the summer at the pool or at the cottage

Later,

Mike

Totally agreed.

I dont think I've yet take longer than 10-15 min to eat a meal.

Now that I'm a guard instructor and I tell my kids to "figure it out", they give me blank stares...then I realize that I actually have to explain and rationalize things for them.

As for walking fast...its called "moving with a purpose". Being on time is now imperative and a way of life for me.

I've often found myself working out or going to band rehearsal or wearing around the house rehearsal clothes and thinking its ok. For us guard folks, typically its a pair of cotton boxers worn as shorts w/briefs or boxer briefs underneath, as well as the essential "wife-beater". Its comfy and I'm used to wearing it after 4years of corps.People have grown to accept me wearing that....now, if they could just grasp why I can sleep on floors no matter what and why I can shower anywhere.

Drum Corps has forever made me appreciate the everyday things we all take for granted.

- not wearing flip flops in the shower

- sleeping in on weekends (having weekends at all!)

- air conditioning

- choosing what I can have for dinner

I've become a more rational person and was forced to grow-up during a summer. As a result, I came back to campus with a new outlook on the "drama" that young adults create, the way I think, the way I treat my friends and my parents and i've become more self-reliant and now, I know its all because of the life lessons I experienced while I was a Scout.

[fick]

For me, high school band was the shocker. I was the reason the "Mr. Intensity" award was created at Suncoast in '92 and when I got back to school, I was going NUTS! Most of the band hated me my junior year because I was so hard and I didn't get it (when you run off and chew out a tree after a bad rehearsal (in drum corps), your 'zone' becomes leathal!).

The band president *tremble* my senior year told me I was out of form and to dress a circle formation when I was at the bottom of it. At the time, we had a guy who marched '75 Madison instructing us and he heard what she said. I looked at him with rage (I was still intense - beginning of the year) and he yelled to me "I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT!!!" I was about to turn her into the kid that carried the yard markers to and from the field.

The best feeling resulting from drum corps was in Marine Corps boot camp, November 1994. I once snuck into a squad leader position right before drill and the drill instructor was in awe at how I marched. He actually said that I looked like I was performing. I was "Good to go!"

I had a couple guys in my platoon try to razz me about never looking around while standing at attention in the barracks. I challenged them to try it themselves. By the reation of the drill instructors, they failed.

My biggest sense of pride in bootcamp (besides having to dress like a Christmas tree for the platoon) was once during the 2nd month/phase...during mail call. The drill instructor called my last name and then said "Do we even HAVE a C***y here?" I grinned and exclaimed "SIR, YES SIR!!" He didn't know I existed. THAT, my friends, is called 'doing what you're told'.

Someone posted that they walk in step to music but break step when walking by Ambercrombie, or however you spell it, in the mall. I do the same when I hear 'bad' music in the parking lot.

Observe this: In every day life, which foot takes the first step from a standstill?

(edit) Oh yeah, it was also neat to have the darkest tan in school when the hortie-torties tried to come back from summer all primmed up. "What did you do?" they asked.... :-D

Edited August 18, 2007 by fick

[leadsop97]

I love this thread. the favorite thing I've read since I last posted was definitely the whole not having to wear flip-flops in the shower. it's so nice.

also, I love the smell of diesel now. Every time I smell it, it brings me back to summer. I was driving home for winter break right before christmas this past year, and I was behind a tractor trailor. at that moment, I thought to myself that if I didn't get the gig I auditioned for at Busch Gardens and the American Wind Symphony Orchestra, that I had to find a way to march somewhere. so, now I'm marching all-age and I thank that Wegmans truck for helping me with that decision.

every summer after tour, I'd come back a little bit different. it made my mom mad for some reason. she thought she didn't know me any more. I became really independent (unfortunately not in the money dept at that point in time cause I had spent my money on drum corps). But she got upset because I'm the youngest and I was growing up. after spending 3 summers living in the Boston area she agreed I could take care of myself. I guess I just miss living on a bus the most, as weird as that may seem. all of the ridiculous things that happen on the bus make the summer what it is. dance parties, relaxing sauna time when the bus just got way too hot and we just put our towels around us. the singing is still one of my favorite things. also, sleeping next to the same people every night and waking up to some pretty good music is another thing i truly miss. some mornings "eye of the tiger" others"amber" by 311. can't get much better. "the final countdown" is by far the best thing to listen to as you wake up the morning of finals. just throwing that out there.

I guess this wasn't much of a post, but a lot of rambling.

[bearz]

...ahhh, diesel...

I took my son to his first full drum corps show show in Dubuque IA this summer. He's 7. As we were walking back from the show we detoured thru the parking lot and had to walk between some other busses to get to our corps. Memories started to flash back to me and stopped him and told him to "smell that" with deep, longing sigh. He looked at me like I was nuts! I told him "thats the smell of drum corps...diesel fumes".

He wants to be a Blue Star in about 10 years...he'll come back to me some day and say "Mom, I finally understand."

[et_hd_rider]

It's a little silly but when I returned home from Spring Training on the food truck I came up with another silly top ten list. Hope you enjoy it.

You Know You’ve Been on Volunteering on a Drum Corps Food Truck If:

1. You immediately start loading forty loaves of bread into your shopping cart even though you’re home and feeding a family of three.

2. You open the fridge and holler to no one in particular: “We need to make a run for milk and juice, we’re short on butter and there are only three bags of eggs – do you think that will get us through breakfast?”

3. You insist on serving every meal you cook, including breakfast, with peanut butter and jelly sandwich appetizers.

4. Your husband wakes you from fitful sleep and you wake up drenched and tell him, “I was having the worst nightmare. We had it all on the tables and realized we’d forgotten to do something for the vegetarians!”

5. You have scrambled eggs in your shoelaces (Thanks Patty) and bleach stains on the hem of all of your “tour” t-shirts and your idea of heaven is sneaking off for 10 minutes in a luke-warm shower.

6. At 10 pm, for no apparent reason your feet start to swell and ache and you pop two ibuprofen tablets (generic brand) from a jumbo bottle of 750 tablets that you were compelled to buy.

7. You grab dishes off the dinner table and start washing them by hand immediately so you can empty the sink for the second wave, even though you have a dishwasher.

8. Your family is still trying to figure out why you holler “Seconds” 30 minutes into every meal.

9. Once a week you feel the need to clean out all the leftovers in your fridge, toss it in pans and put it in the oven and spread it out on the table at 11 p.m. and insist your family eats snack because you’re tossing anything that doesn’t go.

10. People ask you how many kids you have and you say “135 or so, plus staff” and I love them all like they’re my own.

I missed it after she came home early this year. Sadly, it seems my marcher's knee will preclude any further marching seasons for us -- we have this idea that she'd like to still be able to walk when she's 22. Still, it's a fond memory. Isn't it amazing how you can bond over a 5 gallon bucket of potato peelings with other workers who had been strangers the day you arrived?

OH HOW SO TRUE

Also you go into Sam's, SuperWalmart..etc and grap 4 carts and take off for some "power"shopping.

your up at 5 and start breakfast so everyone can eat and be on the go by 8

For the first few weeks home from tour you forget you are only cookng for 4 not 165, and have to cut the portions WAY down!

[Michael Boo]

When I came home after aging out, I had no chance to decompress as I graduated before aging out and I started teaching a couple days later. I had a number of drum corps dreams and I'd wake up sweating. I caught myself once while chewing out the kids ready to say something that would not have looked good in my file.

I've said this before, but to all who age out, GO TO DCI WORLDS THE NEXT YEAR!!! I can't emphasize that enough. Once you find out there is life IN drum corps AFTER drum corps as a spectator, you'll be able to better deal with not marching in a junior corps again.

Of course, some of us never really leave, we just reinvent ourselves. :)

[Bevinator]

your up at 5 and start breakfast so everyone can eat and be on the go by 8

Up at 5 must mean getting out of the vehicle you traveled in and head to the foot truck to start breakfast and/or clean up dishes from snack at the show site. Of course, also start coffee.