Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

This week, the Centerville Pops is performing music from the musical The Music Man, along with other movie music. I don't have any major roles, but I'm in the chorus.

Back in 1980 (my junior year), we performed this musical in high school. But I wasn't in the chorus for that show. I was in the pit Orchestra. playing the "Reed 5" part -- baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, and bassoon. I had either Ben Boyar or Bernie Schneider playing the bari sax part, since I didn't play sax at the time.

We had professional Broadway musical scores we rented. We rented lighting from Unistage, and built own own scenery.

We didn't have a bassoon player, which made it tricky to play Marian the Librarian. It had a nice bassoon part, And I tried to sight transpose. Bassoon music is written in bass clef, and bass clarinet music is written in treble clef, and one octave (and one step) lower than written. I should have taken the time To transpose the music.

Yes, our teachers (Mrs. Green and Dr. Baudo) worked us hard, and rehearsals often went into the evening (10 pm), but we had fun doing it.

The student actor who played Professor Harold Hill went on to pursue a career in acting. His name is John Plumpis, and has his own page on IMDB.

Who else do I remember from the show? Marian was played by Amy Glazier. Marcellus was played by Leigh Koltun. The barbershop quartet had Thomas Dow and Bill Barlow.

A few weeks ago, one of the memes I came across asked if I could still sing my high school fight song.

I remember what our fight song was -- "Mister Touchdown USA" -- but I never sang it, because I was too busy playing it along with the rest of the marching band. And we never played the bridge section; just the verse. Here's the song. . (Trivia: It's one of the songs that the University of Nebraska's marching band often plays.)

The original lyrics are on the website of one of the song's writers, Ruth Roberts. But we had our own set of words. Here they are, courtesy of one of my classmates, John Pfetsch. (Thanks, John!)

We’re gonna fight for Sweet Home Central
We’re gonna fight for Sweet Home High
Blue and Gold we cheer your name
March down the field and we’ll win the game

We’re gonna Fight Fight Fight for our alma mater true
Fight for that sweet victory
We’re gonna do or die
All together Sweet Home High
This is the song of Gold and Blue

We also had the book of Big Ten Fight Songs. It had a yellow cover, and was published by MPL Communications -- Sir Paul McCartney's music publishing company. The songs we played from this book were "On Wisconsin" (Wisconsin), "Notre Dame Victory March" (Notre Dame), "The Victors" (Michigan), "Across the Field" (Ohio State), and "Go U Northwestern" (Northwestern).

I was in the marching band all four years of high school. I was disappointed to find out at the jazz ensemble reunion in 2014 that the marching band program had been discontinued, and the uniforms were sold or auctioned off. I'll talk about the uniforms, the trips, and the good times I had in a future post.