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 There's
A Riot Going On!!!!
My story starts in the Fall of
1967.
If you remember, the Glidden
band practiced before school. I was usually late or
would just skip it. I was quite possibly the worst
trumpet player in the history of the instrument. I
could barely play the scale. I was so bad that one
day, Mr. Hugh Eich asked me if I was going to be
like all of my brothers, get interested in sports
and then quit band. I said, "Probably."
In my Junior year, we had very
good trumpet players. Nancy Shaner, Steve Thornton
and others. I played third trumpet (the lowest) and
decided next year was time to hang up the old mouth
piece.
My senior year, I was passed
up by Lois Kidney and Becky Fielder, which was fine
as I was not a very good player and they were. I was
good at faking it, but not playing it. The other
trumpet player in our class was Mike McNaught and he
was moved to the tuba. So on one particular day, in
the Fall of 67, I was not at band......and guess
what?.......I got elected BAND PRESIDENT.......GEEEZE,
Who knew they even had such a thing....ME?.....Mr.
Eich must have been shocked. I demanded a recount.
I hated band, especially band
days and concerts. marching at ISU, the Carroll band
days and contests......GET ME OUTTA HERE.......Was
anything worse than playing a football game on
Friday night and then going to some band event on
Saturday?.....Arrrrgggghhhhhh.......
Well, at least we had so many
wonderful girls that were in band.
Now it is the Spring of 1968.
I am not sure of the month, but I would guess late
March or April.
We were at the Carroll County
Wide Band Concert where all of the schools in
Carroll county sent their bands for a giant concert.
I think we marched in the morning, then practiced
together, then practiced together in the afternoon
and then the BIG concert in that little, dinky
Carroll gym. (with those wooden chairs on one side
and no seating, just a stage on the other.) There
was a county wide jazz band or elite band, but I was
no where near that.
Well, it rained cats and dogs
and frogs and hogs..... ALL DAY.....The parade was
cancelled.....Usually we could run around Carroll
during our free time, but the rain was so hard, we
could not go anywhere.....We were STUCK on the
second floor of the old Carroll high school
building.....ALL DAY LONG......Geeze.
Man, were we BORED.....There
was NOTHING TO DO......We played cards for
hours.....It was hot and muggy....Just pouring
rain......
About 4 or 5 in the afternoon,
Steve Moorhouse and myself decided to go out and sit
in the hallway. It was a little cooler there. There
were lockers in the hallway and we sat on the floor
across from each other with our feet and legs kind
of blocking the hall..........Pretty soon others
joined us......I would guess about 15-20.
We were sitting there, just
yapping away, half sleeping, when a girl from Coon
Rapids appeared at the end of the hall. She wanted
to walk thru us...She started.....Then halted....She
was not so sure what was going on......Well, she
started again and we started to make NOISE....We
pounded the lockers with our elbows and yelled to
scare her. The sound really echoed in that old
hallway.....She stopped in her tracks, turned around
and walked away. She was afraid to walk thru the
gauntlet. We were the gauntlet.
She went up to the third floor
as I think that is where the Coon Rapids band was. A
few minutes later, she came back down with a couple
of friends from Coon. They started to walk thru us,
we made the big noise again and they passed without
further incident....Everyone kind of laughed as did
the girls from Coon......No big deal.....
Well, I noticed a little head
popping up from the stair case. It appeared to be
the janitor from Carroll. It quickly disappeared.
About 15 minutes or so passed
and we decide it is time to change into our band
uniforms for the concert. We went into the boys rest
room and we were changing our clothes. We were about
half way done, when we heard the strangest noise.
It sounded like police sirens
and they were going down the street.
GREAT......We were so bored,
that this really excited us. Let's throw our clothes
on and go see what is up? Did someone die of
boredom? Did someone feint in the heat and humidity
of the gym? Somebody get hit by a car?
"Let's Go Find Out!!"
Someone looking out the window
then yelled out, "Hey, they are turning into the
school parking lot!!"
Man, is this exciting.
I got one leg into my pants
when I suddenly heard an EXPLOSION........
BOOM
It was the door to OUR
RESTROOM......flying open and
Staring us face to face were
about a dozen COPS, complete with clubs drawn and
those blue helmets.
One of them shouted, "Where is
the Glidden band?"
GULP..........my uniform said
Glidden across the pocket.
Steve said something like,
"What's Up?" and the cop replied, "A wise guy, HUH?"
as they pushed us back toward the wall of the boys
restroom. They were SERIOUS.....and were there to
take CONTROL.
These cops meant
BUSINESS.....Martin Luther King Jr. had been
assassinated and the USA was experiencing riots.
Race Riots.....This is 1968.....RFK will be shot,
The Chicago Convention will be full of rioters.
Anti-Vietnam protests were happening that spring on
college campuses. 1968 was the TET OFFENSIVE, the
turning point in the war.
THESE COPS MEANT
BUSINESS.......but there was nothing going
on.....Nothing.....a bunch of boys standing in their
underwear.
We sent them to the Coon
Rapids band..........
So what happened?.....That
little janitor called the cops, thinking there was a
student riot going on. We were just goofing off as
we were so bored. Nobody did anything. Just some
noise that echoed thru the school in those old
hallways. Nothing broken, no one hurt, no big
political message.....Nothing, but boredom.
So you think that would be the
end of the story, right? .......Well not quite.
On Monday, I was called into
Mr. Eich's office, down by the gym, remember? Our
Principal, Mr. Johnson was there.
I was informed how bad this
incident was....a real black eye for the school and
community.....What?.....We did NOTHING.....I would
say the janitor should have the black eye.
I was told, as PRESIDENT OF
THE BAND, that I would have to write a letter of
apology to the people at Carroll who hosted the band
event......What?......Are you kidding me?
Well, I wrote a letter,
explaining exactly what happened and gave it to Mr.
Eich....He read it and said that it would NOT do, it
was not an apology.....OK, apologize for
what?.....We did nothing wrong.....
Either him or Mr. Johnson
wrote a letter,,,,,,,,
Overreaction by adults was the
problem....but it was the times that we were living
in, too.
Do you really remember how violent 1968 was?
There was a riot going on in
Carroll?.....
Does anyone else remember this
incident?
Anyway, that is my story.....
PS As I have spent almost four
decades in high schools, I have really learned to
appreciate all that Mr. Eich did. The Swing Shows,
the summer band concerts, the parades and all of the
other extra stuff that we got to do was because of
him. Very few schools do anything like that anymore.
Yea, they may take a band trip to Disneyland or DC,
but most schools no longer have homecoming parades.
Seems to me the opportunities are less and less for
each generation. Those Swing Shows took a tremendous
amount of time to prepare and organize. I wonder
what year the vocal and instrumental instructors
dropped doing it in Glidden. My hat is off Mr. Eich
and all of the vocal teachers that we had.
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