27th's Guard

[dc oldtimer]

One of the best things that came out of our corps in the late 70's (the Dark Years as we call them) was our annual yearbook. Generally the book is not for public eyes and many of the things said back then are not very PC today. But after reliving the past tonight, I came across this paragraph in the "tour" article written by the famous Mike Boo describing something I totally forgot about.

The scene is 1977 Denver the morning of Finals. There was a rain shower the previous evening that created a fabulous rainbow before we loaded the busses on our way to Prelims. We were having a rough year but with the numerous changes to our show weeks before DCI we felt we made a decent push to get us into the middle of the pack for DCI:

“At breakfast, a letter was read from the 27th Lancers’ guard, addressed to our corps. They had seen the same rainbow the night before that we had seen, and wanted to write to congratulate us on making finals after an uphill battle, and to wish us good luck. This type of brotherhood is what drum corps is really about, and I wish we could observe more of this attitude. If anyone thinks that goodwill is dead in drum corps. Let them take a good look at 27th Lancers’ guard. I hope we cast as good as image to other corps.”

I love this story and absolutely miss The 27th Lancers.

[27mello]

Wow, I marched in 27th in 1977 and had never heard that story. I wonder whose idea it was? 1977 was my favorite year to march. We had a great bunch of people and staff. That was the year that George Zingali started to become GEORGE ZINGALI. He was a great motivator and had an incredible imagination. After the debacle of first tour, (EVERYBODY beat us), we came home to win CYO Nationals against a formidable field of opponents. 1977 was also Mark Sylvester's first year as a Lancer. (1978 DCI video has a great shot of his disco dancing!!) Great year. Glad our color guard wrote that letter. They were the best, and continued to be the best for many years. Precision was their trademark. Ok, as a horn player, I admit it, we were a little jealous of you girls!!