Yesterday I attended the Welland Rose Festival Parade for the first time in, oh, about 35 years. The last time I was there was with the Teen Tour Band. It was ironic that as my younger daughter, my wife and I walked through the marshalling/staging area we saw the BTTB.
Not only the sight of all the bands and floats brought back a flood of great memories, but the sound too. Horn players warm up under a tree; flag bearers sit around chatting; bands line up to warm up together with uniform jackets neatly piled with their caps at their feet. Everyone can see everyone else.
The diversity of groups shows up during the "hurry up and wait" period. The Chinese Fulan marching groups are all in perfect uniform standing at ease in formation, and it's thirty minutes until parade time. Other groups are standing in half uniform chatting while others are sitting around on the boulevard. A late-arriving bagpiper runs from his car.
We're looking for Sudbury's Blue Saints. The Blue Saints is Canada's oldest continuously operating community drum and bugle corps, now in its sixtieth year. We mistakenly were looking for formal blue uniforms, but as I phoned the director Mark Ripley, I learned that they were in their summer parade T shirts and were looking much more informal than I expected.
My two daughters are going to spend five weeks in July and August with the Blue Saints. Today we were introduced to Meghan the drumline leader. She looks barely out of high school, but is self-assured and friendly to Elinor. We shake hands all around and meet the show choreographer and band director, whose name escapes me. He too is a young man, university aged. He came up from North Texas State University to work for the Blue Saints this summer. He arranged all the music and the choreography for this year's show.
A half hour later the parade was under way. The Blue Saints marched by, supported by their enthusiastic alumni group marching along behind. What the corps lacks in numbers it makes up in spirit.
