some old corps photos

[ajedrummer]

Woah! Matched grip?

Yeah...and in 78 and 79 were BY FAR the best drumlines in DCI. 1979 SCV was one of the best ever...11 snares that kicked butt!!!!

Edited July 29, 2007 by ajedrummer

[SoundmanG]

Third from left looks like Daryl Langworthy but I thought he marched bass drum...hmmm

Third from the left is Bob Kludt. He and I marched next to each other in BD in 1980. Great snare drummer and the most intense guy I ever marched with.

Edited July 29, 2007 by SoundmanG

[scv guy]

Jingle sticks, baby!!!!!!

Here you go.

Oh MAN! Jingle Sticks! You know they bring them out during "Hopak" (concert) where the piccolo soprano trio comes up and does that wacky riff...you know it right?

Third from left looks like Daryl Langworthy but I thought he marched bass drum...hmmm

Do you mean Darryl Cox? Darryl Langworthy was a Bass in '80 and I think in '81. Darryl Cox was in the '75-79 snare line. An excellent snare btw.

Edited July 29, 2007 by scv guy

[byline]

Funny thing about photos like these: They show you stuff you'd completely forgotten. For example, in this photo, you can see the flag line in the back (I'm back there somewhere), but it looks like there are two flags up front, on either side of the rifle gal, who don't have their flags (or maybe they're there, but are just hidden). What was going on there? I don't remember any section of the show where members of the flag line weren't carrying their flags. (And they're not rifles, because the rifle line didn't wear hats. As with the flag line not getting to wear plumes that year, we didn't have enough hats, so the rifle line went without.)

Edited July 29, 2007 by byline

[byline]

And then in these photos of the horn line, they'e wearing pouches at their sides. What were those for? I remember them using hand flags during the drum solo in '79, but not '78.

[byline]

She marched in Royal Coachmen with me in '75 and also '76 when she met her husband Bill "Buzz" Welch. He was/is a "winner."

She's a great gal though and so are her sisters and brother.

I'd completely forgotten Jen's name until you mentioned it. I remember her as being a very nice person, and also great on guard technique. I learned a lot from her (especially as I was a total newbie to guard in '78 and had a lot of catching up to do.)

Was she married back in '78? Seems to me she was either married or engaged, and her fiance/husband also marched Oakland that year. The corps had so many "imports" (myself among them) that it was hard to keep track of who was coming and going. Made it very hard to change and clean drill, of course, because often those folks went home during the week, so they weren't there for weekday rehearsals, only weekends. And many didn't roll in till later on a Saturday afternoon. Gee, no wonder our M&M scores weren't so stellar!

Forgive me for prattling on, but have I told the story of a particularly nightmarish experience I had that year? Probably, but I'll tell it again. I wasn't terribly confident in guard, as it was. First, it was all completely new to me, and second, I don't know why I couldn't have picked a guard that did things simply, but Oakland's style was anything but simple. (I had a friend who marched Cavies' guard in '78 and '79 and asked me why we made things so hard.) Anyway, none of that made this situation any better for me. We rehearsed all day one Saturday and then went to a show that night somewhere in Ontario, I can't remember where. There was a major drill change being taught that day (I'm thinking it might have been one of countless times that the "X" got rewritten), and many of our out-of-towners didn't arrive until later in the day. So guard members were assigned to march their spots, learn the change and then teach it to the horn line member once they got there. One by one, all the out-of-towners arrived . . . except mine. I kept marching my spot, and finally, late in the afternoon, my horn player got there. I showed him the drill change, then trotted over to where the guard was wrapping up rehearsal.

Little did I know that while I was away, our guard instructor had completely rewritten our concert number and taught all the changes that afternoon. I was the only one in the entire guard who didn't know the changes. And, of course, nobody had bothered to let me know this was happening, just let me keep marching that *@#$%&! horn spot. I tried to learn the changes, but I'm not that quick. As we marched on the field that night, I had this sad sense of fatalism because I knew once we got to the concert number, I wouldn't be able to remember the revised work. And, of course, that was exactly what happened. I was the one people in the audience point to and go, "Well, she's lost." Yup, I was. Not a happy experience, and certainly not one of my favorite memories.

It was strange, because all three years that I marched Oakland, we did three completely different guard styles. So it meant that this newbie, who wasn't the most coordinated gal on the planet to begin with, had to keep up. It was nerve-wracking at the time, but it came in handy years later, when I taught guard. I had a bigger bag of tricks from which to draw than many other guard instructors I knew. And, even at the time, it was good for me. As the years went by, my confidence grew. By 1980, I'd gone from feeling quite awkward in guard to performing with a lot of confidence and solid technique.

By the way, you know how I know that's me in the photo? It's something else I wasn't too happy about at the time, but now it's something I can pick out as an identifier. If you look at the skirts, mine's a bit different from all the others. Again, it was one of these things where uniform pieces were wearing out, so they had to come up with replacements on the fly. Most of the skirts were these little flared numbers with turquoise-blue linings that showed whenever the guard did a high mark time. However, I had a replacement skirt; no flare, no lining. Mine was a bit longer and fuller. So you can't see my knee in the high mark time the way you can the other gals. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the guard who wore that kind of skirt. Like I said, at the time, it really bugged me. But now, I can look at a photo like that particular one of Ed's and pick myself out of the group:

Edited July 29, 2007 by byline

[apoch003]

How can we find these excellent pics and still have none of early 80's Argonauts?

[KeithHall]

How can we find these excellent pics and still have none of early 80's Argonauts?

Because you were in them! LOL JK!

[KeithHall]

Jen was engaged to Bill and got married in 1980 or 81. Bill was/is funny. I was the conductor of an American Legion band and heard that Bill told the younger musicians that he played with Stan Kenton's band in 1978. I cut him off by telling everyone that I saw Stan Kenton and his band in 1978 at a local high school and I didn't see Bill in the band. Another story Bill told to some old timers...the Army called him up to play in the band and they made him a Master Sgt. but he only stayed in for a few months. I cut him off from his "story telling" and told him to stop lying. Poor Jen! He also told my parents that if I wanted a job in the Buffalo school district that I had to go through him. I knew he was just a teacher and had no pull whatsoever. In fact, if you knew Bill you'd probably not get a job.

I'd completely forgotten Jen's name until you mentioned it. I remember her as being a very nice person, and also great on guard technique. I learned a lot from her (especially as I was a total newbie to guard in '78 and had a lot of catching up to do.)

Was she married back in '78? Seems to me she was either married or engaged, and her fiance/husband also marched Oakland that year. The corps had so many "imports" (myself among them) that it was hard to keep track of who was coming and going. Made it very hard to change and clean drill, of course, because often those folks went home during the week, so they weren't there for weekday rehearsals, only weekends. And many didn't roll in till later on a Saturday afternoon. Gee, no wonder our M&M scores weren't so stellar!

Forgive me for prattling on, but have I told the story of a particularly nightmarish experience I had that year? Probably, but I'll tell it again. I wasn't terribly confident in guard, as it was. First, it was all completely new to me, and second, I don't know why I couldn't have picked a guard that did things simply, but Oakland's style was anything but simple. (I had a friend who marched Cavies' guard in '78 and '79 and asked me why we made things so hard.) Anyway, none of that made this situation any better for me. We rehearsed all day one Saturday and then went to a show that night somewhere in Ontario, I can't remember where. There was a major drill change being taught that day (I'm thinking it might have been one of countless times that the "X" got rewritten), and many of our out-of-towners didn't arrive until later in the day. So guard members were assigned to march their spots, learn the change and then teach it to the horn line member once they got there. One by one, all the out-of-towners arrived . . . except mine. I kept marching my spot, and finally, late in the afternoon, my horn player got there. I showed him the drill change, then trotted over to where the guard was wrapping up rehearsal.

Little did I know that while I was away, our guard instructor had completely rewritten our concert number and taught all the changes that afternoon. I was the only one in the entire guard who didn't know the changes. And, of course, nobody had bothered to let me know this was happening, just let me keep marching that *@#$%&! horn spot. I tried to learn the changes, but I'm not that quick. As we marched on the field that night, I had this sad sense of fatalism because I knew once we got to the concert number, I wouldn't be able to remember the revised work. And, of course, that was exactly what happened. I was the one people in the audience point to and go, "Well, she's lost." Yup, I was. Not a happy experience, and certainly not one of my favorite memories.

It was strange, because all three years that I marched Oakland, we did three completely different guard styles. So it meant that this newbie, who wasn't the most coordinated gal on the planet to begin with, had to keep up. It was nerve-wracking at the time, but it came in handy years later, when I taught guard. I had a bigger bag of tricks from which to draw than many other guard instructors I knew. And, even at the time, it was good for me. As the years went by, my confidence grew. By 1980, I'd gone from feeling quite awkward in guard to performing with a lot of confidence and solid technique.

By the way, you know how I know that's me in the photo? It's something else I wasn't too happy about at the time, but now it's something I can pick out as an identifier. If you look at the skirts, mine's a bit different from all the others. Again, it was one of these things where uniform pieces were wearing out, so they had to come up with replacements on the fly. Most of the skirts were these little flared numbers with turquoise-blue linings that showed whenever the guard did a high mark time. However, I had a replacement skirt; no flare, no lining. Mine was a bit longer and fuller. So you can't see my knee in the high mark time the way you can the other gals. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the guard who wore that kind of skirt. Like I said, at the time, it really bugged me. But now, I can look at a photo like that particular one of Ed's and pick myself out of the group:

[Tansea]

Third from left looks like Daryl Langworthy but I thought he marched bass drum...hmmm

Darryl Cox...great guy, marched with him in 75.... B)