Salute

 Doctor Jeffrey died. He was the last of a triumvirate of high school band directors who ruled the fields of the front range of the Rockies back in the day. Along with Doctor Gerardi of Englewood and not doctor Chuck Cassio kept marching band alive in the seventies and eighties. Other schools would put on halftime shows, but the units that Jeffrey, Gerardi and Cassio put together competed. It just so happened that we made ourselves available for that period of time when the football teams went to the locker room, allowing us to perform and perfect, with an eye toward the next time we would all meet to determine just who was the best. 

I have written here about my experience in the paramilitary organization that was Chuck Cassio's Boulder High School Marching Band. Those days provided me not just with experience that continues to rumble around in my brain every time I watch the Macy's parade and watch some clarinet player out of step, but also gave me a number of lifelong friends, including my wife and the godparents of my son. The bonding that came along with the time I spent rehearsing and rehearsing and preparing to rehearse and eventually perform in front of stadiums full of fans of precision drills and big brassy sounds. It was the part of my time in high school. 

Doctor Girardi was the director of Englewood High School's Marching Pirates. They were located in the far reaches of the suburban Denver area, so they were a more distant threat. But Doctor Jeffery's Fairview Marching Knights were our crosstown rivals in all things: football, basketball, and yes marching band. We might not have attracted the same kind of schoolwide support of those varsity sports, but each time the Boulder High Panthers met those privileged Knights from "Fairfield," it was on like King Kong. 

Okay, let's say that for a moment you could imagine how worked up a bunch of music nerds could get about going head to head against their most hated rival. Then go ahead and add a begrudging slice of respect on the top and you'll have some notion of the tenor of things back in those days. One of the most difficult things to stomach was the way that Doctor Jeffery seemed willing to take any able bodied student and stick them somewhere in the line just so he could have a group that spread evenly from one goal line to the other. Always two hundred. Or more. At Boulder High we contented ourselves with the idea that we were small but mighty, secretly harboring a wish that we could put still more feet, arms and horns out on the grass. 

That was a long time ago. My wife and I still get a little excited each time we see people marching in step, playing in unison. Those were heady times for us. Even way back then, music education was on the block every time budgets had to be cut. The memories I have are not likely to be reproduced anytime soon. So, farewell Doctor Jeffery. Your bands stomped on the Terra, from goal line to goal line.