The 1978-79 Homewood Patriot Marching Band
30th Anniversary of the first trip to Macy's
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Harold Warren
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- Birmingham, AL USA
- United States
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- What section of the band were you in?
- brass
- What instrument did you play? (if applicable)
- trumpet
- What year did you graduate?
- 1982
- What have you been up to for the last three decades?
- I went off to Auburn and got a Finance degree... and hated Finance. I worked in retail for.. years. Eventually I opened my own shop, as a florist. I had my shop open for almost 10 years, but have recently closed the shop.
I'm very much involved in the Episcopal Church, I'm the self-proclaimed family historian ( which I believe my older sister Leslie, also in the band at Macy's at that time will support as a claim) and I'm about to be looking after my..get this...GREAT-NEPHEW, once his mother goes back to work... while I fix up the old house and perhaps write... among other things.
- What's your fondest memory of the band?
- From THAT trip?
Oh... Leslie will get a laugh out of this. We had gone to Brewbergers (sp?) and I got up enough nerve to get a pack of cigarettes out of a vending machine. I thought I was being SO bad... of course the first one made me feel rather ill, so I did not get any more adventurous.
I also remember quite vividly how, as we were rolling down the streets of New York in buses, we Southerners had our first encounter with seeing "homeless people."
We were young and naive, from a place that ( as far as we knew at that time) did not have people living on the streets.
I can't say what girl it was ( because I was just a freshman and did not know everybody), but I still recall the tears on her face as she looked out the bus window at a man wrapped in a piece of carpet.
I was glad just to be there, even if some of "New York" was rather dark in those days.
I was nothing more than an "also ran" back then... the little trumpet player that could not play.
In case any others out of the band from back then ever read these words, I had a silly accident just after freshman band-camp. I was climbing a tree in a friend's back-yard, when the limb I was climbing onto broke off. I fell 8 or 10 feet, but the limb fell right on my mouth.... resulting in a hole COMPLETELY through my lower lip...Like enough to stick you tongue through.
Even so, I was there for band practice every day, and learned to carry the platform for the Drum Major.
I have no clue as to which of the members of the Color Guard beaned me on the head while I was running back and forth attending menial duties, nor do I care.
Even though I was a lone trumpet marching between the The bass drum and triples, barely able to play at all, I was there. Even if I did not sound like much, I looked my part.
I'm glad that I did better musically the next time around.
What is hard about the second trip is that Pat Morrow wanted to get us into the book of world records for the "highest" marching band show. We were allowed to march on top of one of the World Trade Towers, but I don't think anyone took notice...
When 9/11 came, it was rather personal. The 1981 Macy's parade group... yeh... I'm one of those that went twice...
I was up there... I felt the whipping wind.
When we came back down, we played everything over again... but it was difficult because we were all so cold...
We played anyway...
- Anything else you want to share?
- I remember that I shared a room at the Statler-Hitlton with Bobby Cole, Kevin? somebody and another.
The hotel was under renovation at the time and because of that, if memory serves, some of the girls had to be shifted to different rooms from those originally assigned.
Also, though it is gone now, the hotel we stayed in shared a block with the famous department store now long past, Gimble's... see "Auntie Mame" with Rosalynd Russel for mention of the store...
The "Southern Fried Chicken" we were served at BrewBerbgers was terrible. The huge burgers looked great, but were cooked only about 1/8 of an inch in...
The Automat was at least educational.
The Wiz was the first Broadway show I had ever seen... Stephanie Mills as Dorothy had just about the most powerful voice I have ever heard.
I have been back to New York several times since being in the Macy's Parade. The last time, trying to show the friend I was taking just how the Big Apple looked to me all those years ago ( on her first trip to New York) I was required to book the Waldorf Astoria and show her the sites in a grand fashion... because although we were just kids getting a tiny taste of New York, I still remember seeing it for the first time.
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Oh, the hours of Paul Harvey's news en route to school!
Good memories.
Plus those at 2nd Presbyterian, too.
Last time I saw you my wife and I were at Richs looking at furniture.
What's up with you nowadays?
I just noticed you had written back in September. Sorry for being a slug to answer. I'm doing well and see Tara a good bit.
Tara got a special education degree and worked in elementary schools for quite a long time. She got her Phd several years ago and now works in the administrative staff for Hoover. Not exactly sure what she does.
She is doing very well, still does drama on occasion and lives in Vestavia - boo hiss.
Donna
I also remember being at Radio City later, though I did not have anything to eat there. There was some movie playing that I found boring... so I went looking around the theater instead, taking in the architecture.
I remember my heart just about stopping as I wandered up around the third balcony hallways. I passed an individual whom was primping in front of one of the mirrors... fixing a big bow at the neck, as it were.
I was terrified, having never seen a transvestite before. I went running... but a little later this person passed through the main lobby while we were waiting to get back on the buses. One might have imagined Charlton Heston in "The Ten Commandments" from the way the crowd in the lobby parted as this individual walked through.
For a guy in a skirt and frilly blouse, I don't guess he was "ugly," but I was still un-nerved. As I said about the first glimpse of homeless people earlier, I and many others of our number were naive about the sorts of things that happened in places other than Homewood.
Oh... one other thing that I've thought of concerning that trip... I think the hotel we were in originally had a different name and that may have been re-claimed over the years since. Unless I'm delusional, which is possible, I seem to remember that the phone number for the Statler-Hilton had a rather musical "ring" to it from the Big Band Era... Pennsylvania 6-5000... what that equated to when we were there I have no clue of now, but for some reason I think I remember that bit of trivia as being a part of the mix of that trip... along with matching wind-breakers for the band and getting patches to add onto them for having been in the parade.
Crap... I think I still have that jacket... somewhere...
'night-
Harold
Thanks for the memories. I didn't know that about the World Trade Center performance. Do you think there is a video of that somewhere?
To this day, I still refer to the chicken at Brewburgers as "Yankee Fried Chicken" - no breading, raw in the middle, much like their burgers. I guess E-Coli didn't exist back then. But for worst food on the trip, I still have to vote for the "mass-produced spaghetti" at the place we ate on our first night there. I ended up getting hot-dogs at Radio City Music Hall while we waited for Caravans to end, once I got Howie to come translate what the hot-dog lady was saying.
Lol at the cigarette machine - never heard that one before!
Do you remember everyone being excited as we were leaving because we passed a house with a yard and a tree in it?
Angela Farrar (Neel's mom) suffered a very fast illness of early-onset Alzheimer's; she passed away several years ago.
Neel died from complications of Hepatitis-C (I think that was the reason) at the very beginning of 2008.
Neel missed his mother terribly. I know that the two of them are enjoying each others' company again...
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