The Kwaj Kat Blog

Since my first post in May 2006 I have shared as many key recollections from my Kwaj days as I can pull from the recesses of my mind, but one remains that has yet to be penned. I think it’s finally time to relate my experiences from being in Miss Beck’s band program.

Although not related to Kwaj, a discussion of band would not be complete without a little pre-Kwaj history. During my early days in elementary school, my folks started me on piano lessons around the same time my sister started. I generally enjoyed these, but few kids really get a charge out of being forced to practice in between lessons and getting fussed at during lessons when the instructor discovers that you haven’t made any progress since the last lesson. Still, it gave me a basic introduction to music and paved the way for more advanced piano instruction on Kwaj under the tutelage of Jim Scott and another teacher when I returned to Huntsville in 1977. It also opened the door for an easy entry into band.

I think my eventual instrument choice came as a surprise to my parents, and even to me, since my leaning prior to Kwaj seemed to be percussion. Let’s face it: most boys don’t need a reason to beat on stuff, they just need an opportunity. At an early age my parents bought me a snare drum for Christmas one year, and I delighted in wailing away on it for months afterwards. As an embarrassing aside, I recall being impressed with the youngest kid on The Partridge Family who played the drum set. He was near my age and so I reasoned that I could do anything he could do. Of course, I only had the one snare drum and didn’t really know what I was doing, so I was intimidated by the idea that this kid could play an entire set and all I could do was flail around with my one drum (never mind, of course, that this was a staged TV show and that he probably wasn’t really playing much in reality). One night I was sitting in my bed “practicing” and my folks came in and said I should have an audience, so they placed my sister’s Partridge Family album in a chair facing me. This album featured pictures of every Partridge Family member on the front, so here was this kid with a smug grin on his face staring at me in amusement and disdain while I fumbled around like a drunken monkey beating on a tree stump. Like the boy in Poltergeist who gets out of bed to throw a coat over the creepy clown leering at him from a chair at the foot of his bed, I quickly got up and flipped the album facedown and then returned to my random tapping. I had to do it a second time when one of my parents came in later, found the album lying flat, and helpfully set it back up for me.

The public schools in Huntsville open band up to kids starting in 6th grade, but on Kwaj we had the opportunity to start a year earlier. I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but my folks asked if I was interested in joining the band and I certainly wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity for a new instrument. All interested 5th grade students went to the high school auditorium to peruse the assortment of instruments on display, try them out, and pick the one that most appealed to them. My parents expected me to make a beeline to the percussion stuff, but instead I became mesmerized by the shiny brass Olds Ambassador trumpet that beckoned from the open case in front of me. I tried playing it and the sales rep said that it seemed to be a good fit for me, so that clinched it despite my parents’ quizzing me over whether I’d be happier playing drums. Boy, did they dodge a bullet that day.

As it turns out, I wound up being the only brass player that year, with everyone else opting for flutes, clarinets, saxophones, and percussion. Our director was Miss Beck, the instrumental music instructor for all grades from 5th through high school. We rehearsed in the room right across the playground from the 6th grade classrooms, but I don’t remember how often. Honestly, those rehearsals are pretty much a blur, along with who else was in there with me. I remember Kim Kaholokula on flute, Janet Daglian on sax, and Rosie Hawkins on clarinet, but not much else. The one thing I remember from rehearsals was walking in after returning from summer vacation and receiving an exuberant welcome back from Kim, who thought I’d left Kwaj for good. Being the only brass player had its benefits. I do recall that we added a trombone sometime during my 6th grade year, but I don’t remember his name.

As for performances, we always held our concerts at the high school auditorium since the elementary school didn’t have a suitable facility. I recall warming up in the classrooms inside the auditorium building prior to one such concert, and Kim let me try playing her flute. I wasn’t any good at it, and I don’t think I ever tried again. The other thing I remember from concerts was that, by 6th grade, Janet and I had been promoted by Miss Beck to play in the next level band in addition to our elementary group. That next band was referred to as the training band and consisted of the middle school kids who were preparing for high school. I felt pretty privileged to join the older kids and wore it like a badge of honor. I think a 3rd kid was also promoted, but alas I don’t remember who.

One of the more embarrassing incidents for me occurred after one of our elementary concerts. Miss Beck had instructed us beforehand that she would have us stand up after our last piece was finished so the audience could applaud us. Upon finishing the last note she gave us the cut-off, but instead of waiting for her signal to stand up I immediately jumped to my feet out of excitement and adrenaline. Realizing that everyone else around me was still sitting, I quickly sat again in abject embarrassment, only to then stand again when she finally signaled us to get up. Still reeling in my own embarrassment, I vainly tried to cover it up by gruffly motioning to Janet to follow me up to the main stage where the training band was due to perform next, as if I were somehow in charge. I hope she doesn’t still remember that little bit of nastiness on my part that she didn’t deserve in the least, but I guess she’ll remember it after reading this. Sorry Janet. I remember sometime later seeing a home movie of this concert, including my shenanigans, but I don’t know who it belonged to. I wish I had a copy of it.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of my Kwaj band career was our involvement in the Bicentennial parade (or maybe it was some other parade, I don’t recall with certainty). Miss Beck passed out music for the parade and it seemed highly intimidating, not because it was significantly more difficult than what I was capable of playing, but because it was printed on small sheets of paper sized to fit in a marching music folder. Funny how something so simple as a difference in appearance can make things appear far more complicated than they really are. The music was, in fact, somewhat more difficult than our usual elementary fare, and this was our first attempt at playing while marching along the street in a straight line with the rest of the band. Needless to say, I’m not sure I played the whole time but I managed to keep up and not fall out of formation. Years later I got pretty good at marching during halftime shows and in parades, but in 6th grade this was a tall order. After the parade I had a chance to ride back to the starting point in the back of a pickup with several other musicians, including a few of the high school kids. I believe one of those was Bill Hunter, a trombonist (I didn’t know him personally and had to consult the Ekatak to find his name) who impressed me by performing a rendition of The Mickey Mouse Club theme as we rode back.

Speaking of being impressed, I was also highly impressed (and fairly intimidated) by a rag-tag group of musicians made up of Marshallese boys led by Father Hacker. They had some of the worst-looking, tarnished, rusty instruments that I’d ever seen, but I thought they sounded great every time I saw them, primarily when they would march around the fairground at the yearly Kwaj Carnival. In comparison, I knew I didn’t sound nearly that good when I marched and played. In 1976 a visiting group of Australian bomber pilots were apparently impressed as well with Fr. Hacker’s band, and they chipped in to buy the band a new trombone. Not sure what lucky kid ended up with that one.

As an aside, and while on the subject of rusty instruments, I recall Miss Beck making a big deal to all of us about thoroughly cleaning our instruments after the parade since they would be coated with the dreaded salt spray that would eat away at the finish if left unchecked. I took that to heart and always made sure I cleaned my trumpet regularly, and to this day it still maintains a like-new finish except for a few spots where the lacquer wore off after years of use. Yes, I still have it.

Band was a fun way to spend some time on Kwaj and was a group to belong to, something that became far more important to me after I returned home and found myself in an outstanding band program in both middle and high school. I wish I could recall more about my Kwaj band experiences but at this point it has all blurred and the few specific accounts above are all I can coax out of the haze. I guess there weren’t any monumental events during those early band years, but it set the stage for more significant experiences to come that carried me all the way through college. I still play today but not as often as I’d like, mostly just for church. And though I switched to low brass my last year of middle school and never played trumpet much after that, I always think of Kwaj every time I open the case and see my old brass friend lying there, ready to brave the salt spray for another parade down Ocean Road.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Recollections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.