This post is slightly revised from one that first saw the light of blog in 2006. Here in Hawaii, where just about every location that is not a tourist trap or an arm of government is a military base, there are a hundred skilled trumpet players, so getting a professional to play “Taps” at a Memorial Day function is not a problem. In the more rural parts of America, the situation is different …

The trumpet player was trying to relax. Which was one reason he was so tense.

It was Memorial Day. The parades would start in an hour. They would visit little plaques in each of the six villages of their small town on the Maine coast, each plaque in its turn. Some marching, a prayer, a wreath, three guns, Taps.

Taps. The bugle call. It sounds so simple, so easy. But it is not easy. Oh, no. Those high notes are hard to reach, those long tones hard to hold. One butchered phrase turns beauty to agony. And most amateur players butcher several of them. He was an amateur, he knew the risk. He also knew that they were counting on him to get it right. And he’d managed to leave the house, at an hour too damned close to dawn, without caffeine.

He needed to think of something else for a minute. He turned on the car radio, hoping to catch the sports flash. He missed it, as usual. The station was sports talk, and the announcer was just then accepting a call. “Hi, how are ya?” Every caller said the same thing. As if the physical and emotional condition of the announcer had not been on display coast to coast for most of the preceding three hours. As if the caller cared. He turned the radio off.

He turned in to the high school parking lot where the band members were gathering. It was a small town, a small band, and not much of a band. Practically all the members had gone to that high school, had marched in the high school band under the same tyrant teacher. Their number was shrinking now. Some were infirm; others had passed on. Most of the ones who were left were retired. There were not many younger folk. The high school had not had much of a music program after the tyrant left them; those few who had learned to play instruments had other kinds of music in mind. And they weren’t going to be caught dead in the white trousers that, with the red polo shirts, the band had adopted as its uniform.

Most of the band members were assembled into groups, gossiping. The same cliques and families as in 1962. Or was it 1862? Some of those groups had long pedigrees. The order of music had not changed in three years. About half the members did not know the order. Eventually the band president got the players to line up in marching order. Having established who was to stand where (making allowances for the three absent members who would meet them at the first site, which was hard because some of those present kept asking whether they should stand “here” or “there”), she finally got them onto their bus, a school bus. It was a class party.

The trumpet player was from away. They left him alone. He was grateful for this. He was still trying to relax, get ready for “Taps”.

The school bus found others; eventually, there was a small convoy. One bus had the band. Another held the color guard from the local coast guard station, and a detachment of four Marines, the firing squad. In yet another, veterans from the American Legion post, about a dozen. Most had served in World War II or Korea; their coming to attention was now falling victim to arthritis, to osteoporosis. This year there was a single veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a woman. It looked as if the Legion had adopted a Girl Scout. At a few of the stops, there were veterans in cars; at others, a band from the middle school, or an elementary school; at one, a fair number of scouts, girls and boys, with flags. There were spectators, some places more, some fewer. A few tourists downtown, otherwise they were all locals. Not many had flags.

At every site the busloads poured onto the street, about 500 yards from the little plaque that was their destination and their purpose, and sorted themselves out. A chaotic process. The trumpet player thought of iron filings shaken out into a tray and then brought into contact with a magnet, a weak one, not big enough for the job. The retired Air Force major general in charge got the color guard and firing squad organized and then called the parade to order. The order almost always caught the band by surprise; it scrambled madly into formation from its chat groups and got started on its march just a few seconds after it was too late. The trumpet player forgot about it. He needed to be ready. It was almost time.

Some marching, a prayer, a wreath, three guns.

Taps.

The trumpet player, hidden under dark glasses, closed his eyes. He blotted out the ragged red-and-white band, the Legion color-bearer who could no longer hold the American flag highest, the tempestuous, oblivious children in the adjacent playground.

He played. And as the first phrase rose over the parade ground he saw tents, long lines of Civil War tents along the Potomac River, the bugler sounding for them a call they’d never heard before. Then the tents became stones, long lines of white stones at Arlington National Cemetery, which became crosses, long lines of white crosses in a D-Day cemetery in France. One of those white crosses had his name on it, his blood underneath it. A bugler stood beside it. He was that bugler. He lifted the high note over the cross, and it became a pile of Manhattan rubble. And then a pile of body bags, pulled off a transport newly arrived from Iraq. As the last of the call faded away, the bodies were buried under new white stones. Silence.

It was over. The band boarded the bus for the last time and headed back to the high school parking lot. A few moments of mutual congratulations and thanks before the chat groups reformed. Final greetings as they packed their instruments into their cars and headed off for families or American Legion barbecues: “Happy Memorial Day”.

Happy Memorial Day. The massacre of Antietam in the style of Currier and Ives. Ike Eisenhower as a smiley face over the D-Day beaches. “Have a nice day” inscribed on the archway of Abu Ghraib prison. Party ribbons on the lines of white stones. As if …

The trumpet player merely nodded, picked up his trumpet case, and headed for home.

- O Ceallaigh
Copyright © 2006, 2009 Felloffatruck Publications. All wrongs deplored.
All opinions are mine as a private citizen.

Here’s a peek at a trumpet player well known on this blog.  Of course he wouldn’t post it himself, so I had to do it — but leave the comments for him.

One of the bands OC plays in performed one of their four Christmas Concerts at Honolulu Hale for the City Lights celebration. Here’s a video clip of the band playing and perhaps 1/100th of the huge Christmas display. More photos to follow. Stay tuned for when and where (we have many blogs!).

It is OC’s turn to post (in fact it’s been OC’s turn for days now …) but he is very busy. Right now he is in the spare room practicing the tunes from, Fiddler on the Roof. He is an alternate trumpet player in the pit orchestra and is scheduled for the next four performances. Because he is in the cast, OC received complementary tickets. We attended the play last Saturday evening. I quite enjoyed it and have been singing the songs in my head ever since.

I am very busy right now sewing. One of us will be back to post as soon as we have a free moment for original thought. Of course, while you’re waiting you could go by my cooking blog and check out the new recipes.

OC participated in a musical fright feast. The free concert was titled, Chillers & Thrillers: A Halloween Spooktacular. It was a melodious yet chilling treat.

The musicians were invited to dress in costume. Most of them dressed as undertakers — tasteful nondescript black suits and ties — however there were some brave and imaginative souls in the group. The conductor came as Darth Vader, much to the delight of the audience. He swept onto the stage, cape flaring, as the band played the very familiar, Emperor’s Death March, from Star Wars.

Several other costumes brightened the stage. One was a young lady dressed as a single slice of watermelon. Another was a bright yellow fish. There were two pirates and a couple of witches. The percussion section all wore hockey masks ala Jason and/or Michael Meyers from Friday the Thirteenth (et al). There was a witch in purple satin, a fellow wearing pigtails and a short skirt, and another dressed as Willy Wonka. OC went as Wiz, from the Shoe cartoon by Chris Cassatt.

I made the costume. That is why you didn’t hear from me this weekend. OC mentioned Saturday morning that he’d like an original costume for the concert (or he was going as an undertaker). Next time I’ll know to just press his suit. I worked until two a.m., then got a few hours sleep and worked a bit more in the morning before church. After church we went to the concert. That evening I returned home exhausted to find all my weekend chores still waiting for me. Some of them are still waiting.

Here’s the robe:

Here’s the hat. (Yes, I made it, too.)

And here is the only shot I have of OC in the robe.

The frightening black shadow to the right of OC is a band member in undertaker’s garb. He walked right around me and into the photo. He saw I was taking a picture. He did not say excuse me. He said, “Move!” I quietly left the stage. No more photos.

The picture quality is bad.  The sound is bad.  If you are really disgusted by this offering I wouldn’t be offended if you sent me a top-of-the-line video camera.  Just click the sidebar link and email a request for my shipping address.

The Oahu Civic Orchestra played on Center Stage in the Ala Moana Mall this afternoon.   Here is an excerpt from the Duke Ellington Medley.  Someone with a good ear and a good eye (a really good eye) should be able to figure out why I chose to post this segment.

Here is a brief clip from last night’s Oahu Civic Orchestra concert. You may recognize the score (if you can recognize it through the static) from Pirates of the Carribbean. I am sorry that you have to make do with this poor quality film clip and weren’t there to hear the whole wonderful thing from end-to-end. It was a fabulous concert and I — along with a good many more people — quite enjoyed it. They will be playing again next Sunday and I’ll capture another clip for you.

For more about this concert, visit Oahu Dreams.

This was our camp.  We had a mini-tent city.  Our tent is the maroon one.  I set most of it up by myself.  I was quite proud of me.  At first, because I set the tent up alone (while O.C. was goofing off filling the camp water buckets at the facility a mile away — as if drinking water were important!) I was disinclined to share the tent — then I got to thinking about how chilly the nights might be and relented in favor of his body heat.

The camp ground was across the mouth of the Juan de Fuca river from the town of Port Renfrew.  That river is much wider then it looks.  To the right in this photo was the ocean and Juan de Fuca Strait.

It was a lovely campground.  The facilities were first rate — out houses and a pre-dinner show.  For some reason, the musician looked familiar ….

Despite camp being on the ocean, that isn’t were these intrepid scientists went in search of seaweed.  We all drove several miles to Botany Bay, then hiked down to the ocean.  It was a gorgeous path.

A sign:

Some steps …

And finally, the beach ….

The hunt for seaweed begins:

While O.C. and his class worked and learned, I played in the tide pools. 

Anemone:

Anemones:

Starfish:

On the way home, we paused briefly in Victoria.  Here is the government building:

With a totem pole carved by a representitive the First Peoples: (note the size of the Japanese tourists in relation to the totem pole).

Then it was time to head for the ferry and wait:

and wait (caffeine helps pass the time):

and wait:

We were all looking pretty tired and scruffy.

But finally we pulled onto the ferry and started home and Mt. Baker stepped out of the fog to greet us.

O.C. played such beautiful music the other night, the moon came down to listen.

Since I have been here in Friday Harbor, I have stood — twice — within 5 feet of deer who are less startled by me then I am by them. I saw a young buck sporting budding horns in velvet, and a little doe who was quite happily munching grass on the side of the trail. She politely stepped aside to allow me to pass, but she did not run.

The other night after I barbecued ribs, a fox showed up for dinner. We did not feed the poor scruffy-looking fellow, but I did try to snap his pic — it came out hopelessly blurry because of my excitement.

Every evening OC goes to a point near the edge of the harbor and practices his trumpet. Both a harbor seal and a porpoise have come to visit. Nature gets up-close and personal here.

The Friday Harbor Laboratory properties are a nature preserve. The animals seem to know that they are protected and they behave accordingly. Harming the wildlife here is expressly forbidden. We aren’t even allowed to pick the flowers. Even so, I have violated — and keep violating — the “no feeding the wildlife” rule. I suppose someone will discover it soon and ask me to leave. You see, I have been feeding the mosquitoes — in fact, considering the dots all over my body, I may even be over-feeding them.

OC says he uses the muffler [the technical term is "Harmon mute", even though mine was made by Giardinelli, not Harmon ... but don't tell Quilly I'm being this pedantic. OC] on his trumpet in deference to the fish — or perhaps the fishermen …. He doesn’t want to be held responsible for emptying the bay of marine life. (OC is the only one who thinks he’s a bad player. The seal and I like him.)