Famous, or infamous, corps stories, myths, legends

[Blackstar]

Late 70's Early 80's Crossmen Rookie Initiation: Football on the bus.

Bus Driver turns on all of the reading lights (stadium lights), everyone sings Notre Dame Victory March, all of the vets head to the back of the bus. The back seat is the end zone. One rookie is designated as a blocker, the other is the ballcarrier. The referee blows the whistle and the rookies run for the endzone. The vets in the back of the bus just beat the crap out of the rookies. Legend has it that the only rookie ever to make to the end zone was snare player (and current WGI Director of Percussion) Mark Thurston in 1979.

Eventually football got so rough that severel bus windows were broken out. SO, football was outlawed by the corps administration and they had to switch to a more tame activity....RUGBY!

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In 84 I almost made it to the end zone. My blocker quit on me, They riped my underwear off. I remember being 3 rows from the back pushing on my back when I looked up and seen the biggest contra player in the world in mid-air over top of me. After I woke up I was treated alot better after that.

Just another story my kids are tired of hearing about.

[Ryan H. Turner]

Not a rumor. True story. BD DM's bring over a potted palm. VK DM's offer libations from the cooler. All enjoy a nice cold Pepsi while the other drum majors struggle with the sticks in their...well, you know the rest!

I thought it was kind of cool that BD was the first corps to buy into the VK shtick, and why other corps' DM's became targets for the VK DM's.

Garry

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And I'll double confirm because I saw Rob Brown's video of the incident on the Internet...so it MUST be true!

Hi Garry!

[Slow Adam]

Most service industry people know this one:

What's the difference between a canoe and a Canadian?

Canoes tip.

Garry

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Canadians don't tip in America because we ask for beer and get yellow water...

[84BDsop]

Canadians don't tip in America because we ask for beer and get yellow water...

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Uhhhh....watch your waiter closely next time...are you SURE it's water??

[CPHBARITONE]

Here's an odd one...

I heard that one night on the bus, the bus had a "rookie tallent night", and one kid's act was to pee and mixed it with Vodka and drank it/ In the next rest stop, word spread QUICK of what had happened so the next morning during rehersal, one of the staff members kept calling one "pi$$ drinkers". The kid who drank the vodka/urine was offended and confronted the staff member that he was humiliating him. The guy was cut and sent home right then and there.

[SassyMama]

A rumor is that due to the events of finals week in 2002, Phantom's cooks are no longer allowed to serve chicken salad to the corps. :P

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Not sure if it was finals week, might have been San Antonio - but yes I heard that about one third of the corps ended up bum over tea kettle sick with both N & D. What is amazing is that I think most of the kids still performed and then went back to sick time. The water was pretty nasty as well, so whether it was the water or the chicken salad, the chicken salad probably will shoulder the responsibility. I think now all the corps when in Texas only do bottled water now as a result.

[ambassadorhorn]

For the record.

The Bluewater Bridegmen were from Sarnia. They started out as the Entertainers (in name only) for one season, 1976. In 1977 They did become the Bridgemen. I'm tryng to remember, but it seems tome that they didn't make it to the end of the 78 season.

Madonna definitely did not march in the corps, though there were a number of Americans, mostly from the Port Huron area, in the corps.

Earlier I said that she was on MTV by the time the Birdgemen were operating, but I was confused, or having a stroke, at the time.

Mostly anyone connected to that corps tries hard to forget about it.

If you are the one who put up the stuff on Buccaneers, most of it is right. The stuff about Pheonix I'm not so sure about. I thought that was a totally different organization. There was a brief merger with the Leamington Townsmen that lasted one season - 1978 I believe.

There were three feeder corps: The Pirates, Sarnia; The Raiders, Port Huron (and this is the only corps Port Huron had during the time period 1960 to 1990. Outside that time frame I can't say, but I never heard of one.); The Imperials, London. Those operated in 1979 and 80.

I also followed the link on the Bucs page to the Marching Diplomats. Did you do that too? If so, the Dipomats were a re-organization of the Sertomanaires. The Sertomanaires started in 1958 I believe, maybe a year or two earlier, and went through the management change at the end of 1968. The Sertomanaires actually was a band dating back to the 40s before becoming a drum corps.

All those corps did Great Lakes Drum Corps Association shows and ODCA and CDCA shows. DCE really didn't figure into it very much. ODCA had a hard time understanding there were drum corps south of Kitchener, which is why you didn't see a listing for the corps.

Regards,

John Swartz

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Thanks John, I'll update when I can get that all straight in my head. :P

I didn't add the stuff about Phoenix (I never heard of them before it appeared on the drumcorpswiki page). I always thought the Imperials were somebody's feeder corps but I thought they were what was left of the Lions of London after they folded. Thanks for the correction.

The Great Lakes Drum Corps Association! I had forgotten about it although I remember it now.

Who was it that merged with the Townsmen? Blue Bucs?

So many Ontario corps folded in the early 80's ...

edit for spelling

Edited July 29, 2005 by ambassadorhorn

[kevingamin]

I like how everywhere you go now in that building, there's all sorts of Glassmen history tucked away in every corner...the stuff on AND off the field.  Which brings me to this next story...

Back in the day, Glassmen used to run a haunted school fundraiser around Halloween by decorating G-West (which is terrifying to begin with :)).  This is interesting enough, but what's great is that even though that hasn't been done in years, there are still things left over.  For example, if you go up the creepy stairway that's not really used much and turn on the lights (good luck finding the switch and working bulbs, though) you'll see that some of the light bulbs and walls are splattered with fake blood.  Go down a flight and look up in the dark-- above is a GIANT axe hanging from the ceiling, and some wire fence holding mannequin body parts and hair and blood.  Completely unexpected, especially if you don't know why it's there, and really, really creepy.

I worked one of those haunted house weekends. I was under a ramp built above the regular floor. The ramp had a plexiglass window through which I would scare people by flipping on a flashlight and screaming. A couple came up the ramp and I hit the flashlight and did my scream. The girl was freaked out but the guy got so scared he stamped his foot down hard enough to slam my head back onto the floor. I had a headache from #### the rest of the night.

The corps had to stop doing the fundraiser because all the set-up and tear-down cost too much to make the fundraiser worth it, too much damage done to the ol' building.

I don't have any good stories about G-East, since nowadays it's just used for our weekly bingo and twice-yearly poker fundraisers.

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SEAT OPEN, $1-$2!!!

C'mon, there's gotta be SOME stories about Monte Carlos you can tell... :D

[Slow Adam]

Uhhhh....watch your waiter closely next time...are you SURE it's water??

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Yes, urine tastes better than American beer.

[Walter]

Yes, urine tastes better than American beer.

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I'll stick to Canadian Light, WITH the CAP STILL on thanks!!!