five minutes - fifty years

The James Martin High School band is not just good, they're mostly great, and at times absolutely awesome. Last night's performance was one of the best.

This year's program focuses on JFK. Yes, I know I'm old. And my forgetter is way better than my rememberer. But seeing the images as they evolved on the field and hearing the music, as they segued from the Beach Boys to the Back-Bay-Harvard accent of our young President to the last poignant note of the finale, sent me back like it was yesterday, not 50 years ago.

Those fateful five minutes tick by in my head in slow motion: the office runner standing at the door to our Physics classroom and delivering the unbelievable news; Diane Whitehead's near-hysterical response; Bobby Holley's pasty white face; Doctor Youngblood allowing us sixty seconds of shock before getting us back on track with the lesson of the day (but I don't remember anything else he said). And then a few short hours later Miss Rosebud Johnson's decision that theatre tradition of our show must go on trumped grief and therefore no fall play performances would be cancelled (after all, she said, the only time the world stopped was when President Roosevelt died, and JFK was certainly no FDR). My father echoed her thoughts, saying to me that on that fateful 40's day he cried as though someone in his own family had died. His eyes and mine were dry as we watched the boots-backwards rider-less horse and black draped caisson move through the streets of DC.

Oh, there would be other events in my life that upon recollection evoke gut-deep profound sadness, chief among them Cryton and my parents and sister's home-goings, the Beirut Barracks bombing, Columbia, Challenger, and 9-11. It doesn't matter whose it is or where it comes from, pain is still pain, and all grief deserves respect. But there were too many other things going on in the fall of '63, and my world did not stop spinning. Last night, thanks to Mr. David Carbone's vision and the Martin Band's execution of same, as I drove home, I found the time to grieve.

As I write this, Slater and the band are on a bus bound for San Antonio. I wish them the best as they perform for a State-wide audience. While I know it is extremely important to them, it doesn't matter to me if they win, place, or just show up and stay on their feet. I thank them for their creativity in finding time to couple classroom studies with ten weeks of practicing from pre-dawn 'til way-past-dark, their diligence and determination to get it right, the resulting excellent performances from this band of brothers and sisters, the warriors hearts of parents and drivers and movers and stagers and fans and supporters. I thank them all for a new five minutes in my memory bank.