I was an eleven-year-old in sixth grade All City band. It was two hours each Saturday that the family would not have to listen to me practice my trombone. There is only so much a parent can do to encourage a child. After that, they play a game called, “Hide the Slide.”
All City band met in the band room at Bellingham High School under the direction of Mr. Copeland, a man who I remember had a crew cut, black horned rim glasses and an eye twitch — from teaching sixth grade All City band.
Dave Keim
The music department at BHS in 1966 had incredible musicians in the orchestra, band, and choir, as well as top notch directors. One of the high school boys I idolized was Dave Keim. He was a talented trombonist who loved jazz. I can remember listening to a high school jazz combo he had put together and was envious of his skill and the sounds he could produce. Those of us who play trombone would say, “he had great chops.”
When I was in high school in 1973, Dave was playing in the jazz bands at Western Washington State College. I was privileged to meet with him weekly on campus to be given private jazz lessons. This lasted for a year until he also developed an eye twitch and had to let me go. I do want to add that Dave later went on to become the only white trombone player in the all-black Count Basie Orchestra. He was definitely one of Bellingham’s marvels.
In 1966, high schools had money for the arts. Each year the combined music and drama departments would perform extravagant musicals on the large stage in the auditorium. The stage scenery, actors, singers, and musicians were marvelous, and they could draw in the city to the sold out shows. It was that year that Bellingham High School performed, “The Music Man.”
The show revolves around a flim-flam man who goes by the name of Professor Harold Hill. He travels from town to town convincing parents to buy band instruments and uniforms for their sons so he can lead them in an all-boys’ band. When they give him the money, he skips town. This is his motive operandi until he reaches River City, Iowa, and falls in love with Marian the librarian.
The high school had all the adult-actor roles covered for singers, dancers, actors, and musicians. What it was lacking were children for the River City Boys’ Band. And voila’, right next door was the All City band just chock full of sixth grade boys.
I believe that the high school musical director grabbed about eight of us, I being the boy with the trombone. Of course, I would only work for union scale — that being a hamburger at each practice. I can remember having two costumes: one for being a street kid and one for the boys’ band. These were supplied by the home-economics sewing class, and my mom, who was a seamstress. I also got to wear makeup for the first time. This was applied by the makeup department who should also have had the responsibility of reminding me to remove it before going to Morrie’s Drive-In for a treat after the show.
The performance of the musical in front of the packed auditorium was indeed spectacular and nearly flawless. Although, one of the young ladies during a dance number, spun off the stage and fell into the orchestra pit. I do not remember if either she or the timpani was damaged, but the orchestra pit in the new BHS theater now has a safety net covering the top of the orchestra pit to prevent pratfalls onto the musicians.
There was also a little incident toward the end of one of the shows where Professor Harold Hill has been caught as a fraud. He is paraded in front of his River City Boys’ Band to prove to the town that we can play. We stood on the stage in our band uniforms with our instruments. The Professor, in handcuffs, raised his arms with baton in hand and shouted this famous line: “Think men, think!”
As he lowered his baton, we were to play Beethoven’s “Minuet in G”. It was supposed to sound like six graders who had little experience with their instruments — and it did. In all fairness, I was a first year, eleven-year-old trombone player on a packed stage with a sold-out theater and stage fright. In the process of moving from third position to sixth, the slide slipped from my fingers, slid to the front of the stage, and dropped with a clank into the orchestra pit.
I think the Professor turned his head and watched it as it slid past his feet, but he stayed in character. I also stayed in character and pretended to play a slide-less trombone until the song was over.
All through the rest of the show I worried about getting my slide back. I was worried that the high school kids knew the game “Hide the Slide” and I might not ever get it back.
The last scene in the play, the auditorium was dark. The rear doors opened, and a drum major blew his whistle. The drums thundered and from all the aisle doors the mighty Red Raider Marching Band came down the aisles playing “Seventy-six Trombones.” The lights on the stage came up and while confetti dropped through a window in the ceiling, the cast sang the finale number with the band. This was truly an epic memory for a young boy and a presentation that would have made Meredith Wilson proud.
After the show, while the cast and audience talked in the theater, I walked into the near dark orchestra pit which was a mess of stands, music, and confetti to try to find my slide. As I was about to give up and was thinking of how angry my parents would be, I heard someone come up from behind me. I turned around to stare into the face of Bellingham’s greatest trombone player, Dave Keim. He held my slide in his hand.
“Are you missing this?” he asked. “If you want to get good someday, you are going to have to learn how to hold onto it. See you next show kid.”
I wanted to be a Dave Keim and after high school I went on to be a trombone performance major at Western. Dave though, had set the bar too high and after only one year I gave up trying. I also developed an eye twitch. The trombone then sat in the back of my dark closet for the next thirty years.
And then, the little boy in me was awakened once more. There was a call back of any alumni of the BHS bands who wanted to play in a marching band to support the school during the annual city parade. Pulling my trombone from the closet, I assembled it and blew into the mouthpiece. It was the same sound I produced as a sixth-grade musician. The same rotten tone that came from my horn on the stage of the “Music Man.”
When the band had been assembled, we once again stood in front of our Music Man, director Ralph Pauley, as his 300 strong, Bellingham High School Alumni Red Raider Band. Most had not played their instruments in decades. With his baton in the air, a twinkle in his eye, a drop of worried perspiration on his brow, and our instruments at the ready, the Music Man yelled, “Think men, think!”
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