March Moments 2009: March 21 - Recurring Dreams, Chapter 1

March 21 - Recurring Dreams, Chapter 1
by Jack Bodzas


(Editor's Note: You know you have them. There's even a group out on Facebook about drum corps recurring dreams. Send yours in.)

I have a recurring drum corps dream, and it gets scarier every time I have it - but I love it just the same.

Goes like this:

My dream always starts where I am in the kitchen / drum room of the OLP Annex, learning new drum parts for the new season. I come to realize that at the end of April I will age out, and I should tell somebody.

But I really don’t want to turn myself in. I still want to play on. It was the good ol’ days and I knew it. Pete, Joey, Eric, Mike, Brad, Danny, Gary, Gary, Gary, and Gary . . .they are all there and all are still kids (even Peaches playing cymbals!).

It all seems so real except for the fact that I am fifty-something, have a lot less hair and the uniform doesn’t even come close to fitting.

Then I wake up.



Interested in submitting your own favorite memories for March Moments? Click here to submit, or if that doesn't work, send them to joparente DOT saintsdrumcorps AT gmail DOT com.

March Moments 2009: March 15 - My First Time, Chapter 3

March 15 - My First Time, Chapter 3
by JoAnne Parente


It was the day of the FCBBBL (Fords-Clara Barton Boys Baseball League) start-of-season parade ... April 1968.

That morning, we attended Mass together - in uniform - at Our Lady of Peace Church. Pews were reserved for us, and I think we processed in together just before Mass started. Afterwards, we gathered on the steps of the grammar school just next door for our first group picture.

So many significant moments of my life have taken place in that church - four sacraments; 8th grade graduation; baptisms, weddings, and funerals for family and friends.

That blessed gathering of never-had-marched-before kids made what I'm writing today possible. Carrying my guide-on pole with its pennant flag that afternoon in our very first parade, I never could have imagined any of this.

Interested in submitting your own favorite memories for March Moments? Click here to submit, or if that doesn't work, send them to joparente DOT saintsdrumcorps AT gmail DOT com.

Tuesday Trivia - October 2, 2007

Last week, Goober asked you to name all the rooms in the Annex. Here's the "official" answer in clockwise order entering through the front doors on Walsh Avenue:

• (1) the foyer (area with the telephone)
• (2) the gym (including the open area at the far end leading to the other exit doors)
• (3) coat room (used multiple ways over the years, including storage of the pantihose we used to sell)
• (4) boys bathroom
• (5) boys bathroom
• (6) the room that held the equipment used to address the parish collection envelopes (was originally a classroom)
• (7) the kitchen (used by the drummers)
• (8) the boiler room (used by the drummers on rare occasions)
• (9) classroom (used by the horn line originally, then by the drum line)
• (10) the stage (also was originally used as a classroom)
• (11) the stage storage room (to the right of the stage on floor level)
• (12) classroom
• (13) classroom
• (14) classroom (yes, there are 3 classrooms on that side!)
• (15) girls bathroom
• (16) girls bathroom
• (17) the left coat room (otherwise known as our equipment room)

In addition, there is a storage area above the equipment room, and the "bingo ledge" (they used to call the bingo numbers from there at one time) above the entry doors. Neither is technically a room, but part of the architecture.

Here were the replies (in the order in which I received them):

• Priscilla French Lyons:
  OK, lets try, As you walk in the entrance, to your right you have the equipment room, then 2 girls bathrooms, around the corner is 2 classrooms that we were never allowed to touch then there was the stage on the other wall (my favorite spot!) then around the next corner is the horn room (or the one horrible memory I have of all the color guard having to go in one by one to try out for drum major into that room) then the next room was the drum room then I think there might be a small kitchen that way the first room used for the drum room then turn the corner and you have 2 boys bathrooms, then the room where we paid dues and kept uniforms the back out the doors???
• Karen DeAndrea Aldiero
  Okay, This is how I remember those rooms...
  1st: "side room where drumline paracticed" or "the room where it took me 3 months to play any other note beside low "c"
  2nd: "kitchen" or the room where Mr. Wilke taught the mellophones to "tooey ooey oo"
  3rd: "girls bathroom" or the place where me, cathy, mary & carol would hide out(practice)
  4th " the main room" or the room where Swan would make your knees quake while standing in a pool of your own spit.
  lastly: "the holy classroom" which was usually kept locked against the Saints...
  Hoped you liked my versions...
• Jackie Bodzas
  I might not be too good at this anyway seeing as how I still think I went to “Kidneygarden” in the annex. But to name the rooms is a tough one. Over the years I believe we all played in every room in the building. If the door was unlocked that meant that your section could “hang” in there. I even remember the cymbals practicing in the boys bathroom.
  Three things were for certain: (I think)
  1-the equipment room was the little room to the right of the door as you first walk into the main room.
  2- drumline practiced in the kitchen (which is why I am hard of hearing to this day) till the horn line moved out of the big room on the left(last 2 doors).
  3-horn line moved to the main room after the CG went somewhere else (other building-different night?)

Thanks to Goober for submitting the question and to Priscilla, Karen, and Jackie, for sharing your Annex memories with us!

Our latest Tuesday Trivia question comes from Jackie Bodzas: What were the names of the buses?

Send your answers to joparente.saintsdrumcorps@gmail.com by Monday, October 8th, with Trivia in the subject line so I don't miss your submission. Remember, prizes, prizes, we have no prizes!

Have ideas for future Tuesday Trivia editions? Send those in as well!

All for now -- corpsdially yours from jo!

Weekend Wonderings: Going Home

The Annex was -- is -- a place filled with many significant memories from my teens and early twenties. A few of us can actually claim to have attended school there -- my seventh grade classroom (which became the kindergarten once the New School opened) was one of the few places in the building to which we DIDN'T have access while practicing there with the Saints.

Our growth as a corps was measured by how much room we needed to rehearse. In the earliest days, the cafeteria served us well -- twirlers on the stage, drummers in the Ice Cream Room, big guard in the back, horn line in the center, guide-ons in the side aisle. Soon, we graduated to the Annex, and even spilled over into the New School gym on Friday nights for a lot of years. I still find it a bit amusing that the name of the Annex was changed during those days to the Parish Center -- given that we had sole use for three weeknights during the winter season, and parts of the weekend the entire year, I don't think many in the parish really "centered" there like we did.

While we might have had a vague sense of it back then, having access to the parish buildings was a true gift. In particular, having the Annex as a regular place to gather, rehearse, store equipment, and everything else -- free but for the yearly donations made by the corps back to the parish -- made it easier for us to grow and succeed at what we did for those ten years we were together.

Since our reunion in October 1980, very few of us have had the chance to go back and spend real time in the Annex. The notable exception? Any of the guys who are members of the Knights of Columbus Council associated with Our Lady of Peace Parish -- and I know of at least one!

As I'm preparing for our reunion meeting this evening, my mind keeps wandering, leaving me to wonder ... Will it still look the same? What room will we meet in? Who will show up tonight who wasn't with us at Menlo? Will we get any planning done???

Expect a postscript sometime later this weekend, as well as some additions to the Photo Gallery on www.saintsdrumcorps.com ...

All for now -- corpsdially yours from jo!