My generation of Morris school alumni has memories of marching band tucked away as among the richest memories. Times can change in all sorts of ways. New programs can come along for our youth. There is no shortage of options for our kids. Marching band is no longer among them.
A sad thing? Different points of view can be entertained. Some people in the academic side of music are not enthused about the institution. I imagine a key argument is that the kids play the same tune or tunes repetitively. So if you're looking for real musical development, marching band is not going to be high on the list.
So maybe let's map out an argument like for football. The self-evident benefits of football would appear to be nil. Indeed, it's easy to see huge negatives with the sport. But the sheer idea of group participation with the attendant responsibilities would appear to bear fruit. I would assert that the negatives would still hover for football. This is to assume the head injuries and overall punishment of the human body. Interesting how I and others often have to make that argument. Talk about self-evident.
The awareness grows about football and yet the institution most certainly survives.
Marching band is literally extinct in Morris. I would not be in league with academics who pooh-pooh the activity. It is a vibrant group activity like football but without the hazards. My generation plied it when girls had far less options for group activities. It seems astonishing to note that serious sports for girls in high school didn't begin until 1971. Pretty sure I have the year right. I'm relying on memory.
Girls of course took to sports. Once invested in that, they looked around for summer camps for sharpening their performance. Marching band looked to be less of an attraction. Marching band was likely at its peak here as I finished high school. The boomers were reaching a peak with numbers.
Looking back, so much around us was in flux. What all happened 50 years ago? The ground was shifting with our society. So girls got into serious sports: hard to imagine a more fundamental change than that. The Supreme Court established the Roe vs. Wade precedent, affording women basic rights with its protection. Maybe we assumed that would be a permanent thing. For 50 years, it appeared to be a welcome undergirding for women.
Odd how the ground shifted with that. Not that abortion is an issue to be celebrated either way. Uncomfortable as it was, it kept the female sex, which has a monopoly for carrying babies, from being a political football with the attendant emotions. It was something we could just live with, hopefully with everyone trying to show the best judgment. It would not be so much of a flashpoint.
The contentiousness put women on the defensive - they did not need that. Watch men get pregnant and see what their attitudes would be. Without Roe, a certain element of men is going to try to lord over women. We have seen political types refuse to accept abortion even for generally accepted exceptions. A test was the Minnesota campaign for governor: the Republican on his high horse, apparently with anti-abortion steam coming from his ears. Then maybe this Jensen fellow - "Doctor?" - noticed he started out 18 points down in the polls.
Seems reasonable to argue that the GOP would have captured the governor's office if abortion had just been kept where it was: the Roe standard. So the GOP likely suffered because of their president from 2016 to 2020 nominating three extreme Federalist Society types to the Supreme Court.
People who make their bed can sleep in it.
"There you go again," some of my critics will say, as they sense I'm starting the Trump skepticism argument over again. You think I'm the one who gets carried away on that? People with no inhibitions talk up the orange man quite readily. Like yesterday, I saw a pickup at Casey's in Morris with a big message on the rear window: "We miss you Trump." Drive around with a pro-Biden or pro-Democrat message in this county, maybe you'll have your vehicle vandalized or be done personal violence.
I used gray tape to cover my very small "Kamala" sticker that I had on the back of my Malibu. Not wise to park downtown with this message.
The precedent of Roe vs. Wade now gone, the door is opened for the emotion-laden arguments about abortion. The very existence of the discord is discouraging for women. They are the ones bearing the responsibility for carrying children. Men like Torrey Westrom are nothing but onlookers. Easy to be a know-it-all from the sideline.
So I'm accused of "dwelling" on Trump. While all around me I see and hear messages propping him and his bedfellows up. And if you're on the other side of the aisle, be prepared to be taunted. Trump's bedfellows include white nationalists and anti-Semites. OK, you don't care. I know you don't. I'll still have a word or two to say about it.
Now that the Republicans have control of the U.S. House of Representatives, what is their plan for tackling inflation? Can you articulate that for me?
Delight of music
Getting back to music, the holiday concert of our Morris school bands is December 12. I'm lucky to bump into a director in the program, Ms. DeNardo, at Caribou Coffee now and then. She personally informed me of the date. We have female directors in our band program. "Symphonic winds" is the term often used. I don't recall hearing it when I was in high school.
We also did not use the term "jazz band." Oh my, "jazz" might have been a contentious word, suggesting a sort of underclass. Our director promoted what he called "stage band." Our society got over its inhibitions about "jazz," hence the freely-flowing "jazz band" term of today. Amazing the changes that roll by.
And continuing with that theme, let me point out that women were not allowed in the U of M marching band until 50 years ago. Think again what it was like 50 years ago to be witnessing such fundamental shifts. At what point did our society reach a true consensus against the Vietnam war? Sorry, my memory is not wholly lucid. I'm pretty sure it was by 1973, my year of high school graduation. Morris had its Centennial in 1971. In 1972 I had the good fortune to be able to tour Europe.
We learn from the "Legalectric" blog that "50 years ago, women were admitted into the University of Minnesota marching band, but not without a fight." Wow, "not without a fight?" My late father had photos from when he was in the U of M marching band in the late 1930s. He took many photos of the band's trip to Ann Arbor MI in 1937.
Through the years when looking at the photos, I just never made the impression that there were no women. I don't think I consciously thought about it. It wasn't subconscious sexism, I just didn't notice. Reminds me of the famous baseball documentary "When It Was a Game," where one of the narrators said he apparently "just didn't notice" that there were no players of color. He didn't think it was conscious or sub-conscious prejudice either. I believe his words were like "I'm angered that I didn't notice, I didn't object."
He said the segregation extended all the way down to the ticket-sellers. Of course this had to change. It just had to, just like when the doors were opened for women in the U of M marching band. And for girls in serious school sports.
We might have assumed that the "Roe" decision would be similarly cemented. But we allowed a man to become president in 2016 who lost the popular vote. What hath God wrought?
On the U of M marching band thing, Del Sarlette shared this very interesting background. Thanks Del.
At first I was puzzled by this as I remember Adair Horgen talking about her being in the U of M marching band in the 40s. But then I read the fine print in that little story which said that women were “temporarily allowed” into the band during WWII as a lot of the men were serving in the armed forces. One of those was Keith (Davison), who went overseas in the Army so had to interrupt his time at the U by a couple of years. Adair had told me once that she was in the U marching band at the same time as Keith, but she was in that group when he was in the army so they weren’t concurrent.
Reminder re. holiday concert
Remember, MAHS band holiday concert on December 12! Come one, come all to the concert hall.
The YouTube geniuses help but there's nothing like "being there."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment