BigW Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 (edited) 15 hours ago, Fran Haring said: doing parades onlyWe (Sun) went to a show in Midland, PA, in 1980... July 4th weekend. Us, Westshoremen (they won the show) the newly-reborn Yankee Rebels (they wore Troopers-style cavalry uniforms that year), and one, maybe two other corps... don't remember which ones. Maybe Hanover or Emmaus? Seemed like it took us three days to get there and back. Middle of nowhere. LOL. Some of Sun's all-time great "war stories" resulted from that weekend. Midland was Sun, Westshore, Y-R, and either Crusaders and/or T-Birds. Someone from the Sharpsburg Ambassadors was at that contest telling my Grandmother their corps was the bestest most awesome thing since sliced bread and four wheel brakes, and from my Grandmother's telling me and obviously believing all of this individual's spiel, MUCH better than Westshore so why wasn't I marching THERE and travelling three-four hours to Sharpsburg and doing parades only instead of one hour to Westshore and marching DCA. I was... a bit miffed about that. All I'm gonna say is Westshore, 5th at DCA in 1980, no appearance from the Sharpsburg Ambassadors. Edited September 12, 2019 by BigW 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 12, 2019 Author Share Posted September 12, 2019 (edited) 24 minutes ago, BigW said: Part of it was that the Ohio Brass Factory scores were flat out bowdlerized. The actual scores weren't announced. Placement the same but the numbers were increased by 17 to 20 points to avoid discouraging and embarrassing the unit. It frosted a lot of Westshoremen in a huge way because the corps always got a lot of crap for holding the low score record from everyone with the 37 and it was easily broken and no one knew. IIRC one of the numbers was down around 20. IIRC the Esquires came to DCA in Hershey around 1980-1981 and had like a 23 at prelims... I saw copies of the official recaps in both instances. Can't make this up. I likely have them somewhere in a box if I stumbled on them. Now, much the same is done with minimum scores in most circuits/lowest number useable on the sheet at the bottom of Box One. I have my guesses where the floor is for DCA but would still like to actually see a sheet some epoch. Wind Gap Blue Eagles too from rumor I heard from Ricky Lees brother. Well RCA was gone and new Corps were starting up or old ones coming back to field competition. Think DCA didn’t want to kill that by announcing 20 something scores and having Corps get discouraged and disbanding. But 37.35 and well earned (what a way to start doing corps).... Edited September 12, 2019 by JimF-LowBari 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 12, 2019 Author Share Posted September 12, 2019 (edited) Seeing this is the Class A thread got me thinking (dangerous before coffee).... IIRC most of those “lesser” corps back then were over 65 members. So Class A would not have helped them. Saw lot of them 76-77 and recordings I have sound like pretty full corps (80+ members anyway). Time to dig out 1976 RCA Championships. 6 of the 10 corps on CD sold by DCW. And years back contacted person who cleaned up the tapes for DCW. Cut a deal for 3 of the 4 remaining corps. Edited September 12, 2019 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 6 hours ago, JimF-LowBari said: Seeing this is the Class A thread got me thinking (dangerous before coffee).... IIRC most of those “lesser” corps back then were over 65 members. So Class A would not have helped them. Saw lot of them 76-77 and recordings I have sound like pretty full corps (80+ members anyway). Time to dig out 1976 RCA Championships. 6 of the 10 corps on CD sold by DCW. And years back contacted person who cleaned up the tapes for DCW. Cut a deal for 3 of the 4 remaining corps. Jim... if cutting people would have got them into Class A Finals, back in that era, people would have been cut from performing. I have no doubts. With some of them, you'd have seen goofy holes or obvious band aid jobs to tighten forms. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 1 minute ago, BigW said: Jim... if cutting people would have got them into Class A Finals, back in that era, people would have been cut from performing. I have no doubts. With some of them, you'd have seen goofy holes or obvious band aid jobs to tighten forms. Heck... I saw that with some of those corps at full strength!!! 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 12, 2019 Author Share Posted September 12, 2019 (edited) 11 minutes ago, BigW said: Jim... if cutting people would have got them into Class A Finals, back in that era, people would have been cut from performing. I have no doubts. With some of them, you'd have seen goofy holes or obvious band aid jobs to tighten forms. Now why did I just think of Chumley and the rest of the 1979 gang that came from the Chocolatiers. Irony was 1979 Hershey was at Prelims... at Hershey. I picked up a nice patch and pinback that day. Edited September 12, 2019 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigW Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 20 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said: Now why did I just think of Chumley and the rest of the 1979 gang that came from the Chocolatiers. Irony was 1979 Hershey was at Prelims... at Hershey. I picked up a nice patch and pinback that day. Have a Chocolatiers badge on my one badge hat to go with several other period badges from some other corps like North Star, Westshore, Les Chatelaines, Les Ambassadeurs, North Star... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Ream Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 10 hours ago, BigW said: Part of it was that the Ohio Brass Factory scores were flat out bowdlerized. The actual scores weren't announced. Placement the same but the numbers were increased by 17 to 20 points to avoid discouraging and embarrassing the unit. It frosted a lot of Westshoremen in a huge way because the corps always got a lot of crap for holding the low score record from everyone with the 37 and it was easily broken and no one knew. IIRC one of the numbers was down around 20. IIRC the Esquires came to DCA in Hershey around 1980-1981 and had like a 23 at prelims... I saw copies of the official recaps in both instances. Can't make this up. I likely have them somewhere in a box if I stumbled on them. Now, much the same is done with minimum scores in most circuits/lowest number useable on the sheet at the bottom of Box One. I have my guesses where the floor is for DCA but would still like to actually see a sheet some epoch. Wind gap I think got a 27 in 80 at Hershey and someone got a 23 in 87 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted September 12, 2019 Author Share Posted September 12, 2019 14 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said: Wind gap I think got a 27 in 80 at Hershey That was what Craig S told me. Except quote was “hey Fawber somebody beat your record”. 😝 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fran Haring Posted September 13, 2019 Share Posted September 13, 2019 2 hours ago, Jeff Ream said: Wind gap I think got a 27 in 80 at Hershey and someone got a 23 in 87 And at prelims (which ended up being finals with the rainout) in 1987, seven of the 23 corps there scored below 50.... four of them below 40. Yikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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