OMG... WHAT A GREAT TIME

See,... I knew this would happen.... I am taking some time off from Tour with Blue Devils and am having so much fun that I get WAY BEHIND in updating my weblog. I truly apologize for that! But these last four days were THE BEST!!
I only arrived in Buffalo (Orchard Park) earlier today, whereas I had normally would have been here since yesterday morning!

I already wrote about my Washington experience & hanging out with Lisa and the Trotta family on Wednesday. That was a great day.

Now,... on Thursday we talked about going to a mall and then later on going to the Westchester show. I hadn't originally planned on going there, but my friends were going and thought it might be neat after all. Westchester is always a good show. I remember doing an exhibition there with Reading Buccaneers back in 1987. Good crowd!

We were just about ready to go to the mall when Lisa came home from work. That changed all plans for the day. I like being impulsive, I know...
Lisa was going to visit her mother Ruth in Annapolis for a few hours. Absolutely wonderful lady! It had been 10 years since I last saw her. I can't really believe it has been THAT long, but that's what Lisa told me.
So off we went to beautiful Annapolis. "Mom G." as I always called her had recently moved to another appartment. Nice place. We stopped at her old house first to collect some things and we brought her some beautiful Hortensia flowers from her garden.

It was such a pleasure seeing her again after all these years! She will be 90 this October. There's no way one would get her age correct at the first guess.
We went out for lunch at Mike's, right on the Southern River. It's a seafood/fish restaurant - my favourite,... NOT! - but they fortunately served delicious chicken as well!




In the afternoon we went to Baltimore. I love that city! I remember very well that Lisa took me there (together with Paul, who marched Sunrisers) in 1984 after DCA. Inner Harbor is a neat location! We went to Fells Point first though. Introduced Lisa to Gelato. Now she's hooked! We walked around that part of town a bit. Saw a Morris Dancers performance.
The Baltimore Oriols had a home-game in their stadium. I guess everyone went there, for Harbor Place was deserted. We had a nice and refreshing beer (Sam Adams... my favourite!)
On our way home we picked up some pizzas and threw those into the oven.
The Trottas came home from Westchester around midnight. Chatted with Luigi for a little bit. They enjoyed the show a lot! And made arrangements for better tickets for the Allentown show.

Friday morning we didn't do all that much. Lisa had taken the laptop (that refused to start or show any activity really) to work, and her colleague fortunately managed to fix it and get all the data back on. That did take a bit longer than expected.

We hit the road little after 3PM and made our way to Allentown. Traffic was absolutely ridiculous!!! Roads were congested EVERYWHERE! And a few accidents caused
"rubbernecks" on our lanes.
We made it to Allentown right before the show started. The Trottas met us at the gate.


Skee & Connie always work the main gate. Wonderful couple! Skee used to march Reading Buccaneers with Lisa and me. Exellent drummer!
Shelly Fox always works the corps entrance, so I stopped by her as well. Then throughout the evening I ran into several other Buccaneers I know from the 1987 season. Unfortunately the corps was the weekend off. I had hoped they were scheduled to perform in exhibition here this Friday.



I was out at the frontsideline for most of the show, but had talked to Patty Bibeault (Matadors 1984) on the phone earlier, so knew where to find them in the stands. I had seen them recently on their short visit to Amsterdam, but they had brought their sister Jeanne as well!! My dear friend Jeanne!!!! Glad to see her!
We watched some of the shows from where they were sitting. I shot the Glassmen and Blue Devils of course.


Another surprise was seeing Laura! In fact she saw me in the stands and came over to say HI to us. Laura was a very good friend in Matadors. I admit... I had a serious crush on her back then.
Blue Devils won the show. Their score went down just a little bit compared to their last show.

Unfortunately I didn't see Lisa after the show. She had already left.
The Bibeaults had talked me into staying a day longer and hang out with them. Well,... that certainly was a challenge! There was nothing I'd rather do than spend MORE time with these friends, but I had planned on hopping on the bus again with BD after the show, and going to Buffalo from there. I almost got a ride with the Troopers or the Boston Crusaders, but that fell through so I ended up getting on our own souvenir truck after the Saturday show.


Right before retreat a tribute was made to DCI East show promotor Bob Bennett, who had unfortunately passed away earlier this year. Trumpeter Al Chez (former Garfield Cadet and known from the David Letterman band) played a beautiful rendition of "America the Beautiful" after which the DCI East committee released white helium balloons. Emotional tribute!
Bob Bennett was also my personal contact for getting Jubal into the Allentown show. I met up with him every year I attended the Allentown show.
I stayed overnight at the Bibeaults' hotel in Bethlehem, near Allentown, and after a late breakfast at a restaurant that was formerly owned by Perkins, we spent most of the day at the pool.



The hotel was packed with drumcorps people. One of the guys at the pool knew my friends. He used to be the guard caption head for the Sunrisers. And guess what... when I was introduced to him he mentioned some guy named Paul used to march Sunrisers in 1984. that was my Jubal buddy Paul Besseling. What a small world!!
We had dinner at the Hamilton Family diner just outside the stadium. We missed the first two performances, but that didn't really matter.
Allentown really is one big reunion every year! People come from a lot of places to see DCI. Lots of familiar faces.
Bluecoasts won the Saturday segment of the DCI Eastern Classic.
Went back to the hotel in Bethlehem and got up pretty early this morning, for the souvie truck was to pick me up at 7:15. Some 350 miles, and a good 6 hours later we got to Buffalo and caught up with the corps.
Many members said "Welcome back... we missed you & your cooking". Well... I missed them too, but wouldn't have wanted to miss these last few days for the world!

Enjoy,

HK