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We heard all these horror stories before every sectional block we got with Dan Farell in 02 and 03... and then he was really nice during all of them and usually put our horns down after every single exercise. Maybe he mellowed out a little in middle age.

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We heard all these horror stories before every sectional block we got with Dan Farell in 02 and 03... and then he was really nice during all of them and usually put our horns down after every single exercise. Maybe he mellowed out a little in middle age.

Aw man....say it isn't so!

I was never intimidated by him the way that others seem to have been...to me, he was like the uber-cool uncle or something...he always had something funny to say, but wasn't afraid to let me know when I had "screwed the pooch," so to speak. I'll never forget the time we tracked all up and down some back roads at our housing site in Madison for POC in 1991...and then bought us all sodas.

Dan's a good man. He's one of the people that makes Regiment go.

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And, yes, Dan is The Man. By 94, he was mostly involved in running ensemble. In 92, however, he was still more hands on, as the brass caption head. Which meant the baritone section had more Dan time-- tracking, of course! We always sounded better after he worked with us. As a rookie, he intimidated the crap out of me (the vets started singing the Imperial March as he walked in to the rehearsal room in November.) He was also funny and an all around cool guy.

Funnily enough...I have this moment on video tape. And you're on it as well. I had brought my camcorder to camp that year, and filmed most of the pre-rehearsal crazyness.

As far as Bob Smith goes...I had my share of run-ins with him, including a pretty bad one in 1992. Bob played favourites, and definitely chose certain people to ride over the course of a summer. In 1991, it was me...probably because he was working baritones, and I was the only rookie on lead. He mellowed out in 1993, and by 1994 he was actually pretty decent.

Of course, by decent I mean "spawn of the devil," but you know what I mean.

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Yeah, in 03 I only remmember one block with Dan - he took us off and we trekked Big Momma for a while. Definately a nice changel of pace from our normal sub-sectionals. Other than that, he ran ensemble and regulated the staff.

As for Bob...yeah, I thought he hated me more than anyone else the entire summer (probably had something to do with my White Sox hat). He was all over me from move-ins until two weeks before finals (who knows what changed - of course, I did lose my hat at about that time). It was so bad that I had to ask Will (a great guy) if I was really that bad, and he reassured me that I wasn't. After finals Bob came up to me, and we talked for a second, and I walked away feeling pretty good. At times it felt incredibly petty and mean spirited, but I couldn't help but respect the fact that he'd been doing it for so long.

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We heard all these horror stories before every sectional block we got with Dan Farell in 02 and 03... and then he was really nice during all of them and usually put our horns down after every single exercise. Maybe he mellowed out a little in middle age.

I must have missed Dan's passage into "middle-age" by a year as when I marched in 2001, Buick tracking was anything but relaxed.

As for Bob...I love the guy...he was never mean to me...and I totally understood where he was coming from.

I still cant get over him telling a girl in my section "little blonde pig-tailed hair girl...why do you suck?"

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I must have missed Dan's passage into "middle-age" by a year as when I marched in 2001, Buick tracking was anything but relaxed.

As for Bob...I love the guy...he was never mean to me...and I totally understood where he was coming from.

I still cant get over him telling a girl in my section "little blonde pig-tailed hair girl...why do you suck?"

This is so classic Bob!

I was fortunate to have been tormented by him for a year, too: 1988. He's was still a relatively unproven, young instructor at that point (he aged out in 1985 or 86, I believe). It was more fun having him as an instructor in 89.

Rumor is that Bob is a very good math teacher, and I know he's been quite successful as a tennis coach at the two schools he's taught at.

Bob's analytical mind made him very good at cleaning John Brazale's beautiful drill.

G

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This is so classic Bob!

I was fortunate to have been tormented by him for a year, too: 1988. He's was still a relatively unproven, young instructor at that point (he aged out in 1985 or 86, I believe). It was more fun having him as an instructor in 89.

Rumor is that Bob is a very good math teacher, and I know he's been quite successful as a tennis coach at the two schools he's taught at.

Bob's analytical mind made him very good at cleaning John Brazale's beautiful drill.

G

Bob aged out in 85. I remember some good arguments between Bob and Bryan Hildreth in 88.

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Bob aged out in 85. I remember some good arguments between Bob and Bryan Hildreth in 88.

Hah! Those were still going on in 1991. Actually, we had three-way arguments between Bob, Brian, and Mike Mitchell (Waldo). It was always fun to see them go after each other instead of us for a change. Nevertheless, the 1991 baritone section was pretty ###### when it came to marching, thanks to those three guys.

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Nikk might be able to remember this. I have some rather grim memories of Bob quite literally running after me as we practiced, yelling "Why are you doing that??! It's a straight line! March a straight line!" He did that all winter and up to the first show, then left me alone.

It didn't help at all that Brazale had me between the two shortest people in the soprano section for a lot of the show! I stuck out like a sore thumb and despite the fact that I'd had two years of drum corps experience, my marching technique, well, sucked.

Ahh...good ol' Bob.

Remember he had a corps jacket that said "Bob Staff." Apparently they didn't separate it out right, so it looked like it was his name. Most other people just had their first name embroidered. I remember someone asking him if that was his name and he got really annoyed. Hilarious! b**bs

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