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Memories of the Band
by Roger Vacca '64
We had the only American High
School Marching Band in Europe in 1963 and
1964. In fact, it had such a notoriety that we were invited by Charles DeGaulle to join some of the greatest bands in Europe at Le Mans for the
International Band Festival as guests of the French Government. This
occurred on June 6, 1964 for one week.
We marched in two 1-hour parades a day and one huge parade on the last day
of the festival. That last parade was so large, it would have rivaled the
Grand Finale of The Music Man. It lasted from about 10 a.m. until
late afternoon. It was so large that the city had set a huge banquet in the
Topiary Park for each group to break, while the parade kept going.
There were military bands from the Swiss Guard, the Black Watch, French and
German and who knows what other military units. There were POLKA BANDS on
flat bed trucks. There were specialty bands. However, there were only two
bands of our age group... Ours and a larger band for (I believe Lancaster
in Wales.) That band had an all girl drum line. (I was drum captain that
year. )
Chateauroux used the latest in high stepping drum cadence which stood out
against the military cadencies of the other bands. We were the darlings of
the city.
We traveled in the base AIR EVAC BUS, which had the red crosses and the
big square back doors. We traveled on all the tours that week on that
bus. And, we even took the bus on a run around the famous race track. The
bus had a governor which kept our speed down to 50 miles an hour. However,
the infamous "S" turns were so tight, we really had to move back and forth
to negotiate those curves.
There was a Cathedral in the town built against a famous rock. Legend had
it that if a young maiden hung out the window so as to place her finger in
the well worn hole in the rock, she would marry well. Needless to say, the
rock had a few takers that trip.
We weren't on our best behavior at all times. In fact, the first few hours
we were in our horseshoe shaped hotel, we were caught flying paper
airplanes from our windows into the courtyard below. However, the real problems
occurred when we found the supply of little balls that exploded when thrown
to the ground. There was a real stink when some of our group was throwing
those at the cars in the courtyard from the windows in our rooms.
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