School Trip

This post was written in response to a prompt from the red dress club:

School trips. We all go on them. What trip do you remember the most? Where did you go? Who was with you? How did you get there? Have you ever been back?

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At the end of every year, the elementary kids would walk out the front door of our school and turn right.  When we reached the Variety Store at the corner of Prospect and Main, we’d head left—towards the village park.  There, we would ride the swings and scoot gingerly down hot slides.  We’d play kickball and baseball and red rover until we were hot and sweaty.  The teachers would call us to the shade of the pavilion where we’d sit at wooden picnic tables with green paint flaking from them.  We’d eat our lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder bread.  Ruffled chips.  The obligatory apple.  A couple of chocolate chip cookies and, best of all, a Coke wrapped in foil to keep it cold.

And it’s this Coke wrapped in foil that reminds me suddenly of another class trip of sorts: The annual Memorial Day band parade.  As a member of the marching band, I would don a woolen uniform and board a bus with my baritone and—with the rest of the band and the cheerleaders, the flag girls and the majorettes—would march in four parades. 

I loved these parades.  I loved the solemnity of the occasion.  I loved when the entire village grew silent as the mayor lead everyone in prayer.  But my sophomore year, it was hot—too hot to march in a woolen uniform with a hat upon my head.  It was a tall hat; a furry hat.  It was a white hat, faded to gray.  It was the hat that had caused our band to be nicknamed the marching Q-Tips. 

Those hats.

Those hats!  Looking at my hat, I was hit with a sudden burst of inspiration: I would take three cans of Coke, wrap them in foil and put them in the freezer.  I would march in four parades with those three cans of Coke in my hat.  I would be a cool cucumber.

I would be cool.

The morning of the parade, I put on my uniform, pulled the cans from the freezer and tossed them in a plastic bag.  I put the bag in my uniform hat and drove to school and got on the bus.    I showed my friends the bag of pop.  I was sure they were jealous.

We arrived at the first parade and got off the bus.  We lined up in formation.  We put on our hats.  We began marching. 

It was OK, for the first few steps.  But then, my pop cans kind of rolled off to one side and down close to my ear, causing me to tip my head in that same direction. 

My band director looked at me kind of funny.

I tried to straighten my neck.

We arrived at the cemetery.  I gave my head several violent jerks, trying desperately to center the pop back on the top of my head.

My band director looked at me kind of funny.

The fourth graders recited “The Gettysburg Address.”

My neck hurt.

Slowly, the Brownies distributed flowers to plant at each grave site.

I cursed the pop cans.

A little girl crawled upon an ancient stone, a stone whose words had been erased by time.  The stone fell and her mother tried to right it to no avail and I prayed for the ceremony to be over.

A veteran read the names of all who had served, beginning with the Revolutionary War.

My neck screamed.  I glanced at my band director.  Could I just slip the hat off for just a quick moment?

A trumpet player started “Taps.”  When he had finished, another trumpeter, who’d sneaked over a small rise and behind a tree, echoed the song and I wished, oh how I wished, that I could be playing “Taps” over that hill with my hat off and emptied of the horrible Coke cans.

The ceremony ended.  The band director called us to attention.  I picked up my baritone and turned.  We left the ceremony in Parade March. 

We boarded the bus.  I pulled off my hat. 

I opened a can of Coke and drank it in one gulp. 

We drove to the next parade.

I had to use the bathroom.