It's Perfectly Normal

West Lafayette had multiple choices to offer us when Leslye and I set out to walk. The trail by the river? Purdue University campus? Paved bike trails are few and far between, so we opted to cross the river and head north, away from the airport. It was a little chillier than usual; I was wishing I’d taken my gloves off the bus.

On our right, commuters waited for a train; on our left, there were glimpses of the meandering river through the trees. Passing athletic fields, we could hear the train in the distance. We crossed the bridge back over the river and headed for Purdue. Students raced by us on bicycles, backpacks filled. Others wore sweatshirts against the chill, drinking coffee as they scuffed along in their flip-flops. I love university Tour stops – interesting boutiques, coffee houses, and unusual shops line most campuses, and Purdue is no exception.

After loading the bus early, I walked back towards campus to find lunch before departure. I called Jenna to wish her a Happy Birthday – she’s twenty-one now. It seems only yesterday she turned six during my first Tour. Thirteen birthdays I’ve missed, and so much more. Hopefully she remembers the birthdays and Life Before Tour. Poor Jamey turned two on my first Tour (yes, I miss both birthdays); he has no memory of Life Before Tour. I’ve been lucky that most years John was able to bring them out to visit on or near Jamey’s birthday.

Normal, Illinois is another university town. We have a long standing relationship with Illinois State University – every five years they ask us to present masterclasses to all the studios. This year 19 of us drove over as soon as we arrived in Normal.

Ellen and I shared the flute masterclass – she has a wonderful knowledge of the flute solo repertoire, and I was able to give the students the viewpoint from behind the audition curtain. The flute studio has over twenty students, including graduate students; a nice size studio.

The music department treated us to a wonderful buffet dinner before the concert. As if highlighting the small world musicians inhabit, the trombone teacher walked up to me and asked if I was once Cindy Dary who went to KU. Steve Parsons was a graduate student while I was at KU, overlapping by a year or two. After eight years in the Army Field Band, he is now teaching trombone here. What a surprise to find someone who knew me “way back when”. He asked after my husband and Max, fellow KU graduates. I shouldn’t be surprised anymore – I frequently run into people from my pre-Band days when we’re on the road.

The hall held 3,500 people, and I think there were only 100 or so empty seats dotted throughout the hall. It was a great place to play, and the audience was one of our best yet. The school of music made sure every music student that wanted a ticket had a ticket; I enjoy seeing so many young, enthusiastic people at our concerts. They are the audience of the future.

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Purdue University

With the sun not rising until nearly 8:00 in the morning, our room was like a gloomy cave when my alarm sounded. Michelle still sleeping, I peeked between the curtains to find a wet parking lot, puddles scattered between the cars. It didn’t seem to be raining, so I changed into walking garb and headed out the door. It started misting about ten minutes into the walk, gradually becoming a steady drizzle. The YMCA indoor track was looking better all the time, but we were too far into our walk to bother. It’s only water, after all.

Departure was delayed roughly thirty minutes: the price of a physically active ensemble is often injury – in this case two twisted ankles were being treated at the local hospital. Yesterday, Ellen met a curb rather unexpectedly and twisted her ankle. She iced it all day and had only a slight limp at the concert last night, but morning brought pain and swelling. Sam had chosen a basketball game this morning at the nice, dry YMCA and managed to roll his ankle while chasing a stray ball. (Sam has promised to send me a picture of his swollen ankle so I can post it.)

Tonight’s concert was at Purdue University in the Elliot Hall of Music. Last night’s hall held 3200 or so people – this hall was vastly larger. We managed to fill three-fourths of the floor and a third of the balcony, which may not sound like much, but it must have been a comparable audience size to the night before.

I didn’t have time to walk the campus today (laundry day!), but I am looking forward to visiting the school tomorrow. One of the women in history I admire most was on the faculty at Purdue, retiring in 1948. Lillian Moller Gilbreth, the "Mother of Modern Management" was a woman ahead of her time. Graduating from Berkeley in 1900, she attended Columbia for graduate work before returning to Berkeley to complete her Masters. She married Frank Bunker Gilbreth in 1904 but continued working on her doctorate, receiving her PhD from Brown in 1915.

Her list of accomplishment is too long to list here, but her pioneering work with motion study, industrial organizational psychology, and engineering led to the development of the kitchen work triangle, the foot pedal trash can, and with her husband, aided in the development of more efficient surgical techniques and methods of rehabilitating people with physical handicaps.

Two of the Gilbreth's twelve children co-authored the books Cheaper By The Dozen, about their life as a family before Frank’s death, and Belles on Their Toes, chronicling Lillian’s struggles to continue the work she and her husband shared in a society prejudiced against women in the work place. I read these books often, growing up, and still enjoy re-reading them today.

By the way...she was a redhead.

Ball State

Michelle, Leslye, and I set out for a shorter than usual walk this morning. Knowing we needed to narrow the usual scope of our walk, we chose to walk the grid, going north first and then walking the east-west streets, working our way to the south. Our last stop was The Meeting Place, a small café with excellent coffee quickly discovered by the band upon arrival in Lima yesterday. After seeing the menu (and thoroughly enjoying the chai tea latte I ordered), I made a return trip to pick up lunch for the bus ride; smoked turkey, cheddar, and apple in a spinach wrap, and a strawberry spinach salad with feta and pecans. Mmm.

The bus ride was a little longer than I expected, so I was rushed to get ready for the Ball State TAD. We were taking two quintets and some individual instrumentalists. We trickled down to the lobby, waiting for our ride to the university. When Jan turned to me to ask if I spoke to Jamey recently, that feeling of helplessness every parent on Tour feels washed over me when she told me shots were fired near Annapolis High School, putting the school in lock-down. Memories of the DC Sniper Tour in 2002 came flooding back. Pulling out my phone, our ride arrived. Not wanting to make a panicked phone call in the car with the band director, I waited until we arrived at the university. I found a place with a signal and called John.

After the performance and masterclass, I found a voice mail from Jamey and a text from John waiting on my phone; Jamey was safe (and hadn’t really realized there was a need for concern), and the story floating among the students was someone shooting at animals in the woods behind the school. I expect a letter will be sent home from school tomorrow, explaining the incident; I’ll know more then, but for now I am content to know he is safe.

Emens Hall was huge – it holds 3200 or so people – and we nearly filled it to capacity, in spite of the competition from the debate. It was nice to know some of the students and faculty from the TAD were in the audience – they were looking forward to hearing Don’s arrangement of a Band Staple, Festive Overture. It was a delightful audience; the first yet to refrain from clapping during Variants on a Medieval Tune. They earned an encore, and if we’d had something a little peppier left in the folder other than God of Our Fathers, they might have had two.

The bus ride back to the hotel was the quietest I remember – Lorenzo turned on the debate. Even with the poor reception, everyone peered at the tiny screens or listened quietly. I'm pretty sure I know what most people will watching back in their rooms.

The first full week of Tour is over; the general consensus is if this were last year’s Tour, we would be in the middle of Stand Down.

More to read, here and here.

Lima Beans

Every morning Michelle and I open the curtains to check the weather for our walk/run. It’s quicker than flipping through television channels or waiting for the computer to boot. And every morning I have to remind myself that it is the early morning darkness of the shorter days and not overcast skies I am seeing. We’ve had lovely weather once the initial few rainy days passed. I didn’t want to miss out on a walk in the pleasant weather even though Leslye wasn’t up for one, and I didn’t see Lisa or any of the other walkers in the lobby. So I grabbed my whistle and my phone and headed for the park we passed on the way into town.

I followed the signs towards the golf course and tennis courts; there were plenty of cars and people headed that way. The other direction looked more scenic but a little deserted for walking alone. The placid pond with swimming ducks was very picturesque, the effect somewhat marred by the graffiti on the park buildings. Spotting a signpost with arrows, I followed the road in the direction of the Band Shell. Expecting an elegant gazebo or similar structure, I was surprised to find the boxy, sturdy looking structure nestled in the trees.

After only twenty minutes in the park, I gave up dodging cars and headed down the main road until I found a neighborhood and school. After a quick stop at Kroger for some fresh fruit, I headed back to the hotel to get ready for my quintet rehearsal. It was interesting, trying to fit the five of us into a room with two double beds, a nightstand, a dresser/TV stand, and a table with two chairs. Jan brought a chair from her room, and Leslye, Jennifer, and Chris took the chairs, Jane sat on a bed, and I stood in front of the TV. Since we had rehearsed quite a bit during Tour Rehearsals, it was more a refresher than a rehearsal.

The drive to Lima wasn’t very long (Note to self – it is pronounced like Lima Bean…we must be in the Mid-West or something), and with the concert site attached to the hotel, it meant a little extra free time before the concert. From my window, I could see the loading dock of the concert hall, with the crew unloading the truck. On my way to meet Kristin, I stepped out the back door and positioned myself to take pictures of the crew at work (I rarely get a chance to photograph a load-in.) Standing near the hotel’s dumpster, I was just getting started when an officer from the sheriff’s department stepped out the door and looked in my direction. I smiled and took another photo. He crossed his arm and continued to stare. I took another photo and he glared at me. I decided I better quit while I was ahead (and before he called for back-up to deal with the suspicious looking female casing the concert site) and skedaddle.

The walk through the convention center to the concert hall took us past the Senior Expo. Turning down the hallway connecting the convention center to the concert hall, we found the line for the concert. It was a little like running the gauntlet, trying to make our way through the crowd in the narrow hallway.

Sara had the audience rolling with laughter several times tonight – the loudest and longest laugh was during her narration for The Three Cornered Hat. Giving a brief synopsis, she mentions the Governor tries to seduce the miller’s wife “…or what we call just another day in Washington…” and the audience laughter kept her from finishing the story.

Check this link for an article on the Band:

http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081006/NEWS01/810060304/1002

Aubergine, Audiences, and Autumn

While Friday’s concert was a Field House, Saturday’s was our first true Gym Job. I should have been prepared for the interior after the drive to the concert site – every street light flaunted a large purple flag with a white paw print. The gymnasium was a study in aubergine – everything from the bleachers and folding chairs to the signs on the walls was colored purple. Thinking about how our uniforms would look against a purple background made my head hurt.

The sponsors bent over backwards to make the concert a success. We had camera-folk following us through our warm-ups and the concert, and the audience was our most enthusiastic yet. (We played our first God Bless America!) A nice surprise was seeing Rachel from PAO sitting in the second or third row next to her mother. It’s always nice to see a face from home, even this early.

The shorter tour allows us to visit each state a little more in depth, so most of our drives are shorter than years past. This was quite evident today, our first Sunday Enroute Concert. Typically, in the past, the departure would be mid-morning with a lunch stop somewhere near the concert site. This made concert preparation difficult, with no time to warm up before loading the buses. Today our departure was set for 1240; plenty of time for warm-ups and lunch before leaving.

Kuss auditorium was our first “real” hall – a large stage with an extensive backstage area – the Backstage Band on La Fiesta finally had the space to stand together without elbowing each other. (I’m sure the crew enjoyed the ease of the load-in today.) For a Sunday afternoon game-day concert, the crowd was quite large. Sara was on her game today, both in her moderating and her singing. She adapts her dialogue so easily to the events of the day and has a feel for the locale that never ceases to amaze me.

Sunday evenings are sacred on Tour. Even though we have only been on the road since Wednesday, Sunday nights are the smaller milestones on the way toward home. It gives everyone a chance to recharge their batteries and enjoy a relaxed meal without watching the clock or choosing food without regard to its effect on your embouchure.

Several of us stepped out of Tour to visit Chris’ In-Laws, Vic and Jan. They so willingly opened their home to us and laid out a veritable feast with great pleasure, offering to get us anything we wanted that might not be on the table. There was plenty of room to spread out and plenty of people to meet. I spent some time talking to Susan, Vanessa’s sister, as she explained “Buckeyes” to me; intensely rich little balls of a peanut butter concoction partially dipped in chocolate. After hearing how much butter (three sticks) and powdered sugar (one pound) went into her chocolate marshmallow bars, I didn’t ask what went into the Buckeyes.

We gravitated to the deck and the pleasant weather, sitting under the enormous tree that shades the deck during hot summers. As the temperatures dropped, Jan passed out a pile of sweatshirts and hoodies while Vic built a fire in the fire pit. Darkness descending, out came the marshmallows, hangers, and sticks. Snuggling into the borrowed hoodie, I thought roasting marshmallows in the cool night air was the best way to end our first Sunday.

Back in my room, my hair and clothes smelled like the fire. Closing my eyes, I could see myself as a youngster, sitting before the fire on a cool summer evening, camping with my family in the mountains. Maybe I won’t Febreze the shirt just yet.

For Jay's Aunt Renee: