High Stepping

My name is Erin C.

And I was a band nerd.

There I've said it. If you all choose to surf away to cooler climes, I'll understand. I just thought it was time I came clean.

Last week's Semana Santa bands left me nostalgic for my trusty white band cap, and the thousand bobby pins I'd commission to hold it just so, perfectly stiff, so that from a distance, no one, but no one, would know I was a girl. Girlishness was reserved for flag bearers and baton twirlers. I was a manly piccolo player.

You must know I did not march in just any old marching band. I was 1 of more than 300 (I kid you not) members of Purdue's All American Marching Band, proud owners of the world's largest bass drum. Four drum-men pulled the drum and a 5th jumped into the air to swing out a note. (Still not kidding.) In fact, the year I marched we unveiled the world's largest cymbals, both of them, veering at each other across the field until they crashed in the center.

An All American Marching Band with a sense of the ridiculous.

I marched one season before my parent's divorce sent me out in search of a job. I feel rhythm everywhere and from everything. What could possibly compare to marching down a street or dancing wildly around a football field to the beat of 30 drummers pounding their hearts out?

Today my nostalgia carried me over to the Purdue band site for a march down memory lane.

We played this as we made the Block P, a football field sized P of white-capped musicians.

And we played this every halftime to a thundering chorus of Midwesterners, hats and hands clasped over their midAmerican hearts.

So, there I was a few minutes ago, high stepping my way through my brief marching career, when it surfaced. A wisely repressed band memory. THE memory. Right up there with the graceful if fatally-timed fall overboard that earned me my Chicago sailing nickname: Splash.

Purduf.

As an oversized, "all-American" marching band, we would spell out words on the field, you see. We could spell anything.

The music holder attached to my wrist held my marching instructions -- coded letters and numbers that told me in what direction to march, when and for how many steps. On the fateful, memorable day in question, I, unfortunately, was the designated "end" man, leading my little squad of 4 around the field. Yep, Splash. In the lead.

I don't remember how it happened. Patriotic euphoria over the day's rendering of "I Am An American"? A strong prairie wind in my marching instructions? Well placed worry about Monday's chemistry exam? Whatever the cause, I lost myself, and marched my squad straight out behind the squad next to us. I went left when I should have gone right, 3 loyal piccolo players in tow.

And on that sunny October day in West Lafayette, Indiana, before 40,000 spectators in Ross Ade Stadium and who knows how many Hoosiers watching back at home....

the proud Purdue marching band blasted away at the Hail Purdue fight song

and marched to the end zone

boldly

spelling out


PURDUF

That unexpectedly long tail on the F was 3 gullible piccolo players, and their fearless leader.

Rumor has it the amazing marching PURDUF morphed as it travelled down the field. Four white hats bobbed in panic then dashed into place.....

as PURDUF became PURDUE.

When I left the band to take a job at the local cinema, the band director never said a word. He always seemed so happy to see me behind the candy counter.