Band Bus - Stories for my Grandchildren

One of our at-large family members, Sarah, recently blogged about the great adventure that comes with being a band parent. We have that experience in common. Who knows how many trips, how many concerts, how many BBQ dinner fund-raisers, how many hours Barb and I spent supporting our two through Junior High Band, High School Band, Concert Band, Stage Band, Marching Band, UIL, State Tryouts, etc.? We felt then, as Sarah does now, that band activities provide significant pluses that make it all worth while. Band kids, by and large, are the kind of peer group you want your kids to associate with. Band activities require discipline, and provide reward for hard work, and promote pride in oneself and one's classmates.

And then there's the band bus.  Sarah, you might want to skip the rest of this.

It's not done exactly the same way these days - especially not in the metro areas and big cities, but when I was a band member, we spent hours and hours rolling down the highway in the common yellow school bus on the way to some football game, and then hours and hours rolling back home again. Most of the time, there was a stop somewhere for supper; often there was a stop at a DQ or equivalent after the game before starting home. It was not uncommon to roll in at 2 or 3 in the morning. When you live in a small town (Breckenridge), your opponents are often many miles away. Abilene, at 60 miles distance was a breeze; Wichita Falls at 90 was a lark. Snyder, at 121, was just on the way to Abernathy, 233 miles distant. And Crane was 390 miles away. We got back in the wee, small hours that trip.

It took two school buses to convey the band (and some few twirlers and cheerleaders). There was the underclassman bus, and the Senior bus. Physically, there was no difference in the two. Psychologically, and esteem-wise, one was a royal coach, the other was a tumbrel. It is with some pride that I can say I never rode on the underclassman bus. It's all in who you know.  School was out for us about noon; we made a pretense of gathering our things while waiting for the two buses to pull up, then it was a mad dash to claim a seat. Mrs. Funderburk, the chaperone, and Mr. Roan, the band director, sat on the first two seats, so naturally, the further back in the bus one could position oneself, the more out-of-sight and thus more enjoyable the trip.

We loaded the instruments in bus-top racks, stashed all our gear (and hopefully all of our uniform and regalia) and endured the outbound trip. It was all social, and daylight, and card games and the like. I'm told that some students on the other bus sometimes studied and did homework. Our bus was two or three hours of  benign boredom.

The evening meal was always at some location like Underwoods (in Brownwood) or the Crosskeys Cafeteria in Wichita Falls, or wherever two or more fast food outlets gathered together. Get dressed, discover you forgot your Sam Brown belt, swipe one from the other bus and finally get underway to the stadium and the game. First half, showtime, cruise through the second half and gather back at the buses. This was sometimes tricky, in that locals usually took umbrage at the loss the Buckaroos laid on their boys. Once in Wichita Falls, the locals staged a fight beside the buses, hoping to draw in some unsuspecting bandsmen, then pounce on them. They hadn't reckoned on Johnnie LaForge, our raw Cajun drum major and his big drum major baton. Another successful outing.

And then the trip home. Some slept (the aisle was always the best place for that), couples who had already made allegiances paired off for the trip and the rest of us formed new and temporary friendships for the duration. What happened on the band bus stayed on the band bus. Every week was a new beginning. Mr. Roan had a wooden leg; he never risked walking to the back of the bus. Mrs. Funderburk was usually the first person to go to sleep. If it was quiet, Mr. Munnerlin, the driver never turned on the overhead lights.

So what went on in our band bus? Well... I was usually one of the ones who went to sleep. Right away. And I slept until we returned. That's my story. You'll have to ask your kids about theirs.