Why Would Lionel Richie Want My Frito Pie?

              Now that Fall is back, my thoughts have naturally turned to an activity as much a part of me as the argyle sweater I asked for at Christmas (age 14) and finally, finally (Hallelujah!) received for my 15^th birthday.  That activity is MARCHING BAND, y’all.  I was a big ol’ band nerd from fifth grade through my sophomore year in college.  A trumpeter with a fair amount of talent, I was often chosen to play solos on the field.  I don’t say that to brag, I say that to set up a story about my band experiences that wouldn’t have been as interesting had I simply blended into the formations that changed every two weeks at my small, country high school in the Red River Valley of Texas.

                I had played in concert band for the previous four years but had never participated in marching band as you had to be in high school to do so, at least in that particular school –Rivercrest.  I had no frame of reference for marching bands other than my mother was a clarinet player in the Mississippi College marching band in 1963 and that was the reason she was in Mexico City (for the Fiesta Bowl) when JFK was assassinated.  She never shared any other specifics.  After being a member of the Rivercrest Rebel Marching Band for two years under the tutelage of Claire Jesse, my frame of reference was skewed to something I have still never experienced or even heard about.

                Mrs. Jesse created and taught us a different halftime show every two weeks.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We learned new songs and new marching formations for every home game and the subsequent away game.  We were not required to memorize the music, obviously, as we were taxing our brains to remember the very specific choreography that had to be exact, so the show would work as we only had like 35 members. There’s not a whole lot of designs you can make with that few people, a Blue Moon being one of the ones I remember.  Anything more complex than a circle or square would be interpreted as “People Randomly on a Field…in Big Hats…with Feathers”.  Minimalism doesn’t begin to describe it.  On top of that, we had to learn new songs for the pre-game ceremony at Homecoming.

                One of the upsides of being a talented trumpeter is getting to play a solo.  Trumpets are the coolest people in band, on par with the drum section, if you don’t count the bass drums or cymbals, no offense.  In the Fall of 1984, I was selected to play the solo at the pre-game Homecoming ceremonies.  The song was the timeless tune, Lionel Ritchie’s Truly.  If you’ve never played that melody on a trumpet, let me tell you it isn’t necessarily a difficult piece of music if you were to play it once.  However, repetitious playing can be taxing as there are very high notes which require you to tighten your lips on the mouthpiece to play them properly and I was going to excel at whatever I was doing.  For those who don’t remember, Homecoming 1984 was held on a very wet and extremely muddy football field.  It seemed like it had rained the previous 40 days and nights.  I promise you there were animals lined up in pairs in the parking lot of the football stadium, looking for an ark, people. 

                Cut to me standing in the same spot on the field to the left of the Homecoming Court who were walking very slowly on sunken red carpet, holding the skirts of their Scarlet O’Hara meets Barbie Birthday Cake formal gowns out of the mud, one of them wearing football cleats and another wearing cowboy boots, so as not to get, literally, stuck in the mud.  Because their walk across the field took about four times longer than we had practiced, I was forced to play a beautiful but difficult song four times as many times as I had planned.  It seemed like 64 times, but it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 times. 

                Anyone who has played a trumpet knows that your lips get tired after playing for a long time and you have to give them a rest.  Don’t say a word; it’s too easy.  I was used to tired lips (again, too easy) but this time when I finished, my lips wouldn’t work at all.  I literally could not form words; I could only make weird sounds. Imagine Charlie Brown’s teachers or a very sad Chewbacca. 

This shouldn’t have been a problem as most people who sat near me in the football stands would have loved to have a break from the wonder that are my stream-of-consciousness conversations, ranging from my unending need for a Frito Pie to my secretly coveting (but outwardly mocking) a certain band member (let’s just call her Jathy Cones) whose mother brought her iced tea in a mason jar. 

One thing I wasn’t aware was happening during my extended remix of a solo was that I was slowly sinking into the mud.  So much so, that when I turned to leave the field, my shoes got stuck and when I jerked my legs to remove them from the muck, my natural athleticism took over and I accidentally pulled both my feet out of my shoes, leaving the double-tied Kaepas peeking out of what was supposed to have been grass but was stock-show level muck, y’all.

As I was on the field, not the sidelines, I had to somehow get my shoes.  I didn’t want us to get a penalty and/or someone to trip over them causing us to lose the game and making me the local preppy non grata.   When I went back to get them, I was forced to get out of the way of my bandmates who were leaving the field behind me in a big hurry, as the pre-game had spilled over into the game time and we were in violation of something; I don’t remember what.  I played football not even half-heartedly (eighth-heartedly, maybe?  I mean I showed up to the games and that counts for something, right?) for two years but remember only that I hated it and every move I made was the wrong move.

One of the more observant cheerleaders saw I was trying to get something off the field and ran over to help (let’s call her Jonna Do Javis) as she was also a very kind person, with a heretofore unknown wicked streak.  She saw my shoes sticking out of the mud and extricated them in the nick of time.  I was thrilled that she had them.  Now I just needed to get them from her.  I smiled and motioned to her in a very subdued manner, like a Baptist sneaking a second helping at a potluck, to get her attention.  She smiled and waved the shoes at me and not in a subdued manner; more like a Pentecostal moved by The Spirit.  I don’t know if I knew where she went to church, but I’m sure in retrospect she had to have been back-slidden because what she did was downright Unchristian.

Jonna Do Javis held my shoes high in the air, like a trophy and walked slowly to the middle of the track surrounding the muddy field directly in front of the Homecoming Court and all the people in the stands.  I know you’re thinking ‘how many people could that possibly be in a tiny town?’  Well, it was Homecoming, so it was literally everyone who lived within a 20-mile radius, except the housebound or the infirm.  This was THE event of the Fall, on par with the Rodeo in the Summer, y’all.  I might as well have posted the video on YouTube.  Football games were the Facebook of the 1980s in the South.  The Dad even went to them and he left the house about as often as the Pope watches Pay-Per-View Wrestling. 

Once she made it to the spot she felt was most advantageous to maximum embarrassment, she wiggled the dirty shoes at me.  I tried to motion her over to keep from being publicly humiliated again (lest we not forget the time I accidentally tackled the opposing football team’s bench, but not any of their players and injured myself but no one else in the process).  I just wanted to go sit down and eat my Frito Pie once my lips started working again.  But no.  Jonna Do was not having it.  She thought it was hilarious to make me walk (muddy) sock-footed to get the shoes from her hands, in full view of the throng and I mean throng, y’all, for real.

If my lips had been working I would have given her the business but alas ‘twas not to be.  And I wasn’t the type to exact revenge on anyone, especially to the person who was the closest we had to Snow White in our school.  She literally had woodland creatures follow her around school.  Or maybe those were just the taxidermized specimens in the biology classroom.  Or maybe I’m misremembering her interrupting my speech on Koala Bears when I brought my stuffed animal as part of my presentation.  When she interrupted, my teacher didn’t stop the timer and she helped me get past the five-minute requirement from Mr. Lum, our teacher, saving my under-prepared butt and keeping my A+ average intact.  I was normally a conscientious student, but the night before the report was due, The Dad came home with a VCR he had bought from the trunk of a guy’s car in the parking lot of The Wal-Mart and somebody (I won’t say who) decided to watch Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, four or five times.

I can’t believe I had forgotten about that almost-debacle.  Jonna Do, the saintly Disney Princess helped me maintain my academic reputation.  And here I had nursed a (relatively small) grudge all these years.  I apologize Jonna Do.  Mea Culpa.  Mea Culpa, indeed.