(PART 5) How DCI and Star of Indiana changed my life

(make sure you read Part 4 before reading this.)

Failure was not an option. Literally, I felt as if my life depended on making this work. My biggest dream I had in my life at this point was within striking distance. Ironically, I was not going to let "no means to do it" stand in the way of me doing it. I need to call on some of that good ole resilience I used to get out of the Mississippi Delta and land a full music scholarship at The University of Southern Mississippi. I knew there was a way, it was just a matter of uncovering it. The clock was certainly ticking. I had less than one month to engineer this success. From that moment on, it was happening! There was no retreat!  I was not going to be one of those people that said they marched drum corps because they went to one camp. Not happening. 


How to do this? Well... Flying is out. Too expensive. I don't have a car and obviously, I can't buy a car. I don't have a job! Car... hmmm...??? I have to find another Chris Gilmore. Someone that wants to audition for Star that has a car. I spent the next week or so on a campaign around the school of music trying to convince everyone I knew with a working automobile that being in drum corps is a magical opportunity. I even tried to convince some woodwind players to switch to a brass instrument an tryout. "Lots of people have done that, " I said. "Where is your sense of adventure?" I encouraged. This quest was as futile as trying to teach a Negro Spiritual at a Klan rally! I was putting way too much effort into this. I needed to move on to Plan B. Unfortunately, there was no Plan B. There really wasn't a Plan A.


New focus. Who was at the camp that I knew? Aha! Steve Bennett!!! The baritone player from Columbus, Mississippi!!! If I could ride with him, all I had to do is get to Columbus, Mississippi. If I could pull this off, I would be set! Ok, how do I get Steve's contact information. Lions All-State Band is where I first met him... I still had the Lion's Band roster info from that past Summer. I went down the list. There it was: 10 digits that were like the Hammurabi Code of my success as I knew it. I called the number and asked to speak to Steve. It's his mother. His mother was a dean at the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus. As I talked with her and introduced myself and explained the purpose of my call, she told me that Steve was not home. He was in school at Itawamba Community College in Fulton, MS. Not very far from Columbus. I called Steve, made the arrangements to meet him in Columbus. We would go up together. Problem solved! Not quite. 


How do I get to Columbus?? That's 5 hours away. Sigh... On to the next obstacle. Aha! I remember taking trips to see my relatives in Chicago and Detroit with my grandmother when I was a kid. We always took the Greyhound bus. That's it! I'll take a Greyhound bus to Columbus, MS, drive up to Bloomington, Indiana with Steve, then ride back to Hattiesburg via Greyhound when we got back. This was bullet-proof! Yet one last obstacle was standing in the way. I've never purchased a bus ticket myself. My grandmother always took care of that when I was 7 years old, naturally. Even still, I was certain the tickets weren't free. I had no money on hand to buy this ticket. I couldn't get a job real fast at McDonald's and get paid all of a sudden. I needed the cash FAST! 


Now, what I am about to reveal to you would make Dave Ramsey, Suzie Orman and Clark Howard all roll over in their graves; if they were dead. I can pinpoint my current struggle with financial peace to this very moment in my 18 year old life. As I was walking to The Hub (which was Southern Miss' version of Grand Central Station) to check my mailbox, I noticed a little kiosk set up out front under a tent. Sitting behind a table at this kiosk was a California beach-blonde girl who was a perfect vision of beauty! Next to her was an even more beautiful redhead who seemed to be Michael Flatley's pick of the litter! I remember it being unusually warm for January in South Mississippi. I wasn't sure if this unusual heat spell had me hallucinating, but I could swear those girls were checking me out. I looked over trying to play cool just to sneak a peak at their beauty. Dude, they ARE checking me out! I gave my best Phillip Michael Thomas from Miami Vice half-smile with a "what's up" head nod. How cool am I? Wait... They are gesturing me to come over there! What?! "Me?" I point at my chest in utter disbelief. "Yeah!" they both yelled in unison. If I had ever been certain of any one thing: I was NOT going to keep these young ladies waiting. Over there, I went!


I'm walking in double time towards this tent. Then I realized, wait... you can't seem like an over eager dork. You've got to act like beautiful girls ask you to come meet them all the time! So, I slow down. Now. Get the theme music from Shaft going in your head.  Got it? Ok, read on... 
The mystique of what these sun-bleached princesses wanted with me was stirring up... we'll call it "adrenaline." Were they inviting me to a party? Did they just think I was that cool that they just had to meet me! Here we go! "What's up?!" I said. I'm certain my voice cracked like a nervous, 13 year old Jewish boy asking a girl to dance at his Bar Mitzvah. "Umm, do you want to sign up for a Chase Visa Credit Card? It's totally free!!" said the redhead, like she was reading it from a recently dropped cue card. "Yeah and you can pick your free gift. You have a choice between a free t-shirt or a water bottle..." added her redneck Pamela Anderson companion. Ok, remember how I had you play the Shaft music in your head? Ok, now yank the needle off of the record player. Screeech!!


"Umm... No... Sorry," I disappointedly answer. I started walking away in defeat. A defeat that was only composed in my own mind. As I was walking away, I realized how stupid I was to feel rejected. Then, it hit me! Credit Card?!? I could... This would... I could get... I know, you're waaay ahead of me. This was my gold pass to the financial sustenance I needed to buy my Greyhound ticket!!! I whip back around. "Ok, tell me more! What is the credit limit?" I eagerly ask. "Umm, how old are you?" Blondie asks. I was genuinely impressed at how she turned the word "old" into a three-syllable word. "I'm 18," I smirked; still amazed by her profound Dukes of Hazzard meets Gone With The Wind accent. "Okaaaaaaaaay, that limit is Faaaave Hun-erd Dawwwlers," she drawled after studying her chart like a poodle listening to its masters voice coming out of an answering machine. That's, $500 to you and me. Now, (for those of you that know me well) I fought every urge to tease this girl and get her going. I had to repress it for my own well-being this time. This Southern sorority version of Scarlett O'Hara was now my gateway to Star of Indiana. "How long does it take for the card to come in the mail?" I pushily inquired. "About a week," answered the ginger. I gave them my drivers license to scan on the copier they had on site and signed a few papers. And just like that, I was a member of the plastic society! A credit card, baby! And, somehow, I managed to get the T-shirt AND the water bottle! I'm not sure if it was my undeniable charm or the fact that they would do anything to get me away from them. Probably the latter...


One week later, as promised, BOOM! credit card! So, naturally, the first thing I do is get the Greyhound ticket, right? Nope! I call up my friend Nathan Aycock's sister, Emily (whom I was trying to get to go out with me) and take her out for dessert! You all know this girl as Emily Lymon. My wife now. I took her on a date that we could walk to. Again, no car and obviously no "game." We walk to Shoney's near campus for desert. I start telling her about how cool Star was, trying to impress her. Her brother had recently marched with the Cavaliers for 4 years and SHE was all about being a Cadet. I go on and on. I think now, looking back, I annoyed her more than made her like me. The next day, I get to the Greyhound station and buy my tickets. I don't remember how much they cost, but I remember it was my kind of price. The thought never crossed my mind of how I was going to pay this credit card bill. I had a pass to paradise... and a chocolate sundae.


Everything went as planned. On a Thursday morning in late January, I got on a Greyhound bus! It stopped at EVERY small town between Hattiesburg and Columbus. A 5 hour trip turned into a 10 hour trip! I got to Steve Bennett's mom's house. I slept that night, got up the next morning (Friday) and we drove to Starkville to pick up another person I didn't know that was at the December camp. This guy was Lance Britt. He was from Huntsville, Alabama and had just recently marched Magic of Orlando in their inaugural season last Summer. Awesome! That makes splitting the gas even cheaper. Keep in mind, in 1991, the price of gas was $.88 per gallon.


This camp was even better than the first one I went to. I felt at home. I got to be even better friends with all the kids in the pit. The cool thing at this camp was we got to go outside with the corps for the very first time with all the pit equipment! This was going to be awesome. I was going to get the full drum corps experience. Whoa! Wait a minute! It's 40 degrees outside. This Delta expatriate DON'T DO COLD!! I did cold. I shut up and dragged what seemed like a mile of percussion equipment outside. My hands were frozen! It hurt just to grab the ice cold metal equipment. Finally, we were set up. Cool! Star of Indiana! Here I was. In it. It was like I could hear the sounds before we made them. In fact, I really could! It was the sound of raindrops... Cold Indiana raindrops falling down on the instruments like an evil timpani roll preceding a villain in a play. The villain was here. Rain!!!! We scramble like Japanese townsmen in a Godzilla flick to get that mile of percussion equipment back into the building, -slipping and sliding up the muddy hill to the back of Star Hall. 


There we lay. A cold, exhausted, mud-covered, cadre of coughing co-eds lying on the floor of the pit room. The equipment was shoved in the room by any means necessary. It looked like a percussion factory had exploded. Just as I was about to catch my breath, I hear this strange voice, "Where de hell arrr the damn taaaaaaps! What happened to the damn taaaaaaps! You saaawr it was about ta rain and ya went out without the damn taaaaaaaaaps!" screamed this male voice in the most brusque Massachusetts accent I had ever heard. In walks this middle aged, balding guy who looked like someone had just asked him to fight. We all just laid there a looked at him. He hurried out of the room and immediately appeared again as a big glob of blue tarps. He throws them on the floor violently. "Don't go out without the damn taaaaaaaps next time!" he said and left the room. This was Eric Lund - the equipment manager for Star of Indiana. I had heard about him from the vets. I was told you do what ever you have to do to NOT make him mad. We certainly had made him mad.

We stayed in that room and dried off every piece of that percussion equipment. Every nook and cranny. Every cymbal. Every drum. Every mallet keyboard. It was all bone dry! This took us about an hour to do. It took several trips to the supply closet. Tons of rolls of paper towels. Alas, we were dry. We all had to change clothes to keep from tracking mud throughout the corps hall. By the time we were done, there was about an hour left of camp. The pit room door swung opened. It's Chris Lee. "Hey, guys we're going back outside for ensemble rehearsal. It stopped raining!" he said in a motivational tone. WHAAAAAA???! We just brought all this stuff in!! Surely, he was kidding! Nope, he wasn't. This was going to be a mutiny. Especially for the rookies. We had no idea that setting up and tearing down and moving 8 times was priority #1 in our job description. This was a shock to our system. "Maaaaaaaan, I ain't doing this..." Drew said to me. Is this what it was like all the time? This doesn't seem like much fun. All of a sudden, the romantic view of being in this group had faded... Is this how I want to spend my Summer? Am I busting my butt for something that I'm going to hate? I've got to think this through. For the first time, doubt had entered the equation. Doubt was winning. 


(Part 6 - coming soon...)