Jeff Ream Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 as someone who saw the corps die, come back, die again, come back, be announced as dead and reborn in 3 weeks only to climb to the top and die yet again, i have an interesting vantage point. I was so fun in the 70's to see the corps fight back, especially when Baltimore folded, my Dad came back and some of the YR guys joined him. I remember the new unis in 79 and people saying "hmmm, this is going somewhere". A lot of people didnt consider 78 Al to be a big thing, because no "names" went. 80...5th place...never woulda dreamed it. 81...Larry never should have changed the end of the show. should have kept Music. 82...wow, just wow. What I remember most is a corps shooting bottle rockets at one of the corps vehicles in NY ( Rochester) when it broke down. Dad and I rode up with Jerry and Betty Johnson in their RV. and finals...so sad. I was devastated as a 13 year old. I knew that night my marching days were getting closer. 83..always so close, yet so far. 84...I remember it falling all apart, only to be thrilled to see it come back by seasons end. 85-88...watching it slowly build back up. My first day in the corps for the 89 season. Let me tell you, that 89 drumline was great...not because of talent. Ask DeLong...we had heart, we worked our ##### off. When we popped a 19 in drums at Carlisle, nobody but us was more surprised. Finals...winning High Percussion Ex...wow. 1990...a should have been year. I won't go into it, but we had the highest score in DCA the week before finals, and ended up 4th. lotta people left. 91-94...some ups, some downs, then in october 94, after a meeting at the Embers, it was decided the corps would fold. a few weeks later....we're back. I jumped in in March for the 95 year, and we went from 10th in 94 to 2nd in 95, winning drums all year long, including finals. Even finally got Dan's middle name after the 95 season, no time wasted...we started in October for 96. Hell, wen went into Barnum and won the #### thing. the corps had a small implosion in Orlando that lasted thru prelims....in fact, IMO, our best run of the entire season was in the lot before prelims. Finals night...we were loose. we worked for maybe 5 hours finals day. we went out and did our show. may still #### some off, but we won. and for every one of my brothers and sisters on the field that night, it wasn't just us...it was for all 50 years of Westshore. It was for the guys like Warfel, Jerry Johnson, Chuck, Larry, Fawber, Ricky Lee, Ben, my dad, the entire Flipapenny clan...and everyone in between. yeah it all fell apart after that. But I will say this...being in Wildwood today, and seeing many faces from those 90's corps out there doing an indoor guard show under the name Westshoremen...yeah I got misty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 My goodness BigW? What year are you talking about? I taught Cru in '79 and there are a bunch of inaccuracies in your statements about them... only thing that was true was the turmoil... Vince departed at DCA in '79 and that cemented my desire to leave which I did... Then correct my innaccuracies by all means, Tom. I do remember Gary Ferris as the Drum Major for a good part of the season in 1979, wearing a largely black with silver uni with a cape with a white crusdaser's cross on it. Is that incorrect? I do distinctly remember the corps growing from about 35 to 40 horns to about 55-65 later in the season (with a total 10 Contras that came out of the woodwork, too!) and personally watched a rehearsal led by Corky himself with a lot of people I recognized as being old time Crusaders out there rehearsing that weren't there two weeks before. Or was that smallish fellow on the podium with the big shock of white hair conducting like he was trying to start a tornado with his intensity and inner force of personality someone else? Yes, Vince left- and I know there were a lot of personal issues there with a lot of people. I'd seriously like to see your side of it- I do also distinctly remember the Superstar program, the stylized whips with the bright red ends to them, and the rifles aimed at Jesus in the off-white robe. I also remember him being lifted on the shield at the end pf that segment- which was the best part of that segment of program by the way. That's pretty unforgettable stuff. I've seen at least a couple of hundred band and corps shows live since 1976 and studied a lot of recordings and film/video of programs from earlier than that as a pretty serious student of the activity and I know I've seen nothing like what I saw in that show for the first half of the 1979 season before or since. I know serious changes were made in that program from about mid-July to the Labor Day weekend, serious, serious re-writes, and everyone had to have really killed themselves to make them all work. So- where am I goofing up on what happened there? If you want- I can try and contact Steve Vickers for a copy of the DCW article where the "noted thespian" involved in creating the Crusader program was mentioned to confirm I'm not absolutely loopy on that one. That's also a pretty unforgettable piece of copy, too. I can't make things like that up, Tom. "Thespian!?!?!?" Tom- I had to look that word up in the dictionary back in 1979, seriously. Dad told me to get the dictionary off the bookcase and learn, LOL. But please- tell your side and make any necessary corrections or annotations regarding my point of view of it! It's partly why I'm doing this- everyone's got *their* side from the perspective that they were sitting in at the time, and you were on the other side of the fence dealing with that whole situation- It'd be an understatement to say it couldn't have been easy. I felt the pressure coming off that Crusader hornline at the late-season practice and their intensity, and watched Corky push himself and everyone else pretty darned hard and I mean borderline frantically hard. There were a few of us who quietly watched and observed on our break and we knew you guys weren't fooling around at that point. I remember him telling the corps loudly at one point that "They didn't want to be third that night", which meant behind the Bucs... and by default, us. So, if there are any inaccuracies about certain aspects of the program that I saw, or the fact that you guys tried very hard to bring in a lot of additional experienced personnel and make serious changes in a very serious effort to recover the season- and you did make a real good run at it- and you came pretty close to pulling it off- talk about it! This is the chance to try and get things straight from both ends. I also wasn't finished with that end of things, which might have led to some of the issues you may have. No offense is intended- but there are some serious object lessons to be learned for everyone. I know at the end of the story I'm trying to relate, much the same thing happened to Westshore, Tom. We went down the tubes in '84 and it took many more years to rebuild after that. I'm still in '79. But please, hit me with your end of it. And-- where am I missing the boat, specifically? I'm not insulted- I'm in fact extremely happy you want to get involved and have your say, please do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Looked at Corpsreps.com, yes- Cru did a lot of changes, basically took their '78 show and took out a huge amount of the Jesus Christ Superstar material from earler in the season. Left some of it as the opener. But I do know there was a part early on using the music from "Heaven on Their Minds" and the 39 Lashes" as well as from "Gethsemane" and the main theme I do believe, that included the whole thing with the guard. We saw this show several times in the early part of the '79 season, Changes started in July, contimued till championships IIRC. What was there on Labor Day in Hershey was a totally different program than there was in June. I know I'm not daft on this issue. And no I wasn't "inhaling" like a few guys in the corps and some other corps too, were at that time, either, LOL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Jeff- It's kind of funny that you thought 1980 was unreal. From my perspective and I think from others, we were on our plan, to keep getting better and moving up every year. We were so focused on that goal, that I don't think any of us thought we'd stop. Sun had a real rough year that year, and we took advantage of that after a tough, tough tussle. I just haven't got that far along yet. It seems there's a pattern here- we profitied in spades from other corps' hiccups for several years running. And a few years later on in this story, another corps more similar to us in some ways than you'd really think rolled along and did the same thing to us. Again, more on that later. More or less, we threw the block that enabled them to run for several touchdowns afterwards, and God bless 'em for getting there, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hairbear Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 this is all very interesting to read. Keep writing! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 (edited) My goodness BigW? What year are you talking about? I taught Cru in '79 and there are a bunch of inaccuracies in your statements about them... only thing that was true was the turmoil... Vince departed at DCA in '79 and that cemented my desire to leave which I did... Tom maybe you can answer a question for me. Following was on the T-bird website and think it originally came from me. And I got it from the show program. Any idea why Cru did not show up or this is an "oh crap" mistake? Will have to dig up the program to see what was printed in it and what was hand written. All I can think of is bus problem, drill not ready yet or should not have been listed. IIRC Spring 78 had a lot of wet weekends with killed lot of drill time. And Cru came in 6th that year (I looked). DCA Show 1 July 1978 Mechanicsburg, PA 1. Reading Buccaneers 63.40 2. Westshoremen 62.30 3. Erie Thunderbirds 50.95 4. Guelph Royalaires 43.15 No Show - Rochester Crusaders Exhibition - Hershey Chocolatiers Oh yeah, still remember Hershman at Lewisburg one year. We're watching "Christ" get lashed and Larry sez: "And you think we're tough when you're late for practice? These guys whip you!!". Memory of La Clique Alouette at 1979 Finals. Jim Wolfe, ???? and I got a bite at the park and coming back to the park. We see LCA in a group and no idea who they are. We walk over and suddenly their group starts screaming and running around. Big dude yelling "We're in.. we're in" picks me up bodily and spins around. Finally I get to say "That's great.... who ARE you?". As we march up to the field to do Finals LCA started the "Can Can" part of the show and the crowd goes La Ape Shirt. Couple of us start wonder if they're gonna do a Phoenix and knock some corps off big time. Turned out.... not really. Edit: Thought Cru had 12 Contras at the end of the 79 season. Guys would come out for retreat with black t-shirts numbered 1 thru 12. One show three of our four contras had shirts made that said "3 + John = 12". And of course the shirt on the 4th contra said "I'm John". Crus' contra line came over and everone had a good laugh over that. Hmmm, our contras were Craig S (Ricks brother), Julie Close, John Close and (IIRC) Kirby K. Edited May 3, 2010 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomPeashey Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 I believe the 12 contra was 1978 - we had 76 horns at championships... I believe to this day it was the largest line in DCA history... I don't remember pulling out of a show that year for any reason and I was up to my ears in management. We weren't clean but we did have a great time and the audience loved us. How can you NOT love 26 lead sops all working above the register? For those who need a musical cue to remember - that was the "Annie" year (Tomorrow) and "MacArthur Park" among others. So Jim, Sorry... no explanation here for the note in your book. The rest of the schedule scores including 1978 will be up soon - maybe that will shed some light... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 I believe the 12 contra was 1978 - we had 76 horns at championships... I believe to this day it was the largest line in DCA history...I don't remember pulling out of a show that year for any reason and I was up to my ears in management. We weren't clean but we did have a great time and the audience loved us. How can you NOT love 26 lead sops all working above the register? For those who need a musical cue to remember - that was the "Annie" year (Tomorrow) and "MacArthur Park" among others. So Jim, Sorry... no explanation here for the note in your book. The rest of the schedule scores including 1978 will be up soon - maybe that will shed some light... OK, 1978 would work for the 12 contras too. Westshore might have had 6 contras in 1979 but my memory ain't that good. Since you know nothing about the "no show" I'll blame the group that set up the "program". Seriously, the show was part of the 150th(?) anniversary of Mechanicsburg and the show program was only a few pages in the anniversary booklet. My guess is the booklet had to go to the printers before the show was finalized and show line up might have been a best guess or wish list. LOL, that many horns would have been interesting as Mech. has one of the smallest stadiums I've ever been at. Now if I can just remember if Hershey made the field that year... 1976 yes... 1979 yes... in between... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Yes, the Crusader Contras had the black with white numbered shirts in '79, and they wold wear them in retreat. And yes, the Westshore Contras made the "3+John=12" shirts as a response. They all came over and shook John's hand at DCA finals retreat, good laughs all around. John Close was a freakin' beast- a Fine musician, but lord, he could PLAY. And Julie, his wife was quite good, too, as well as Craig, Rickie Lee's less famous Brother. Yeah, John and Julie rode Harleys to rehersal and John had those gray eyes that scared the livin' bejeezus out of me when I was a kid- but once I got to know him, he was really laid back and great to hang with. We had some other guys later who were also absolute Beast on Contra- Art Murray, and in the '80's Nelson, who also marched later with the Cabs- Fantastic guys who could drop the floor out from under your feet when they sat on the horn.! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 OK, 1978 would work for the 12 contras too. Westshore might have had 6 contras in 1979 but my memory ain't that good.Since you know nothing about the "no show" I'll blame the group that set up the "program". Seriously, the show was part of the 150th(?) anniversary of Mechanicsburg and the show program was only a few pages in the anniversary booklet. My guess is the booklet had to go to the printers before the show was finalized and show line up might have been a best guess or wish list. LOL, that many horns would have been interesting as Mech. has one of the smallest stadiums I've ever been at. Now if I can just remember if Hershey made the field that year... 1976 yes... 1979 yes... in between... the stands have been redone ( i know I'm there weekly in the fall), but are still small. 76 brass tho would cover up any trains running behind the concert side Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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