Analogy -or- Ya Might Get Your Hair Wet

Perusing the local Internets this week, I found a pair of images from long ago which, nonetheless, got me thinking about things that are happening right. this. moment.

Stay with me. I’m goin’ long.

In case the image doesn’t load here: there is a caption accompanying the images, and it reads, “Model Kelly Hyler grabs Donald Trump after he tossed her in the swimming pool at a party at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach. Hyler wanted to put him in the pool, but his bodyguards intervened, January 30, 1993.”

Throwing someone in a pool can be a harmless and humorous prank, so long as [a] the Throwee can swim; [b] the Throwee is not wearing expensive clothing or jewelry or carrying technology that s/he would prefer not get wet or otherwise ruined; [c] the Thrower and Throwee each have some prior understanding (through previous relationship, deep or fleeting) that such a prank will be understood to be *only* a harmless and humorous prank; and [d] it is mutually understood that the Throwee is within his/her rights to reciprocate — and thus to administer unto the Thrower an equivalent amount of minor and temporary humiliation, and that the Thrower is willing to accept that humiliation — regardless of whether Condition [c] is met.
A number of things cannot be deduced from this pair of images:

[1] Whether the Throwee, Ms. Hyler, thought it was all in fun.

[2] Whether the Thrower, Mr. Trump, thought it was all in fun.

[3] Whether the Thrower, Mr. Trump, checked to see whether the Throwee, Ms. Hyler, was on the hook for any damage to the clothing or jewelry, whether or not it was her property.

[4] Whether the Thrower, Mr. Trump, checked to see whether the Throwee, Ms. Hyler, could swim.

[5] Whether the Throwee, Ms. Hyler, considered her imminent Reciprocation to be an act of Party Fun or Revenge.

[6] Whether the Thrower, Mr. Trump, understood that Condition [d] had an equal likelihood of being Party Fun or Revenge.
Some things can, however, be deduced from the caption:

Ultimately, at that party, the Thrower, Mr. Trump, knew that no matter what he did, his actions would result in no consequences (damp suit and tie; wet hair(!); public humiliation; possible assault charges), because he had people — bodyguards!, as if he was a frickin’ world leader at the time! — who would make sure that no consequences would be visited upon him.

Those people would intervene. Those people would save the Thrower, Mr. Trump, from having to play the game by the rules (written or unwritten) that the rest of us understand and historically accept.

So the Thrower, Mr. Trump, knew that he could get away with Any Old Thing he wanted to get away with, and he himself would be bailed out of any trouble which that Any Old Thing would cause him.
In spite of the six things that cannot be deduced from this pair of images, but even notwithstanding what can be deduced from the caption … I think that the images may reveal just what kind of person the Thrower, Mr. Trump, is.

And just what sort of leader he is, or isn’t.

This November — provided we make it that far, and provided there is still an election to participate in — I think I would like us all, in November, to be Kelly Hyler.

In this analogy, I do worry that people like Attorney General Bill Barr, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, and the Republican US Senate majority, will be the bodyguards.

The 31-Day Blog Challenge, Day Sixteen: They Can’t Take That Away From Me

I marched with UMass in the late 1980s, and I saw a gentleman clearly having a ball doing his job.

I assisted with Boston University’s marching band in the mid-1990s, and I watched another gentleman in his element: in the midst of a group of student musicians, teaching, leading, encouraging, holding feet to fire occasionally, with humor and wisdom.

Regular Blogge readers will already (likely) have read my various notes about my time writing for the Delaware band, and the dominant impression that their director leaves with anyone who has watched her interact with her charges for twenty-plus years now.

In some form or another, it is or was their dream job, certainly in that moment. Nowhere else I’d rather be, etc.

Part of my answer to the question, “what’s your dream job?”, is rooted in my observations of those folks.

Yep. My dream job: directing a college band.

Actually, to really fully answer that, I would have to say, “directing a college band which is performing a field show full of music from Star Trek”, but I think I’ll refrain. I mean really.

One out of two ain’t bad. And I got to do it, for a time.

I have chronicled, in this space, the two-day road trip that I took with the College of the Holy Cross’ marching band, wherein they played nice with the University of Delaware band, and wherein I spent about thirty-six hours totally immersed in what I wanted to be doing.

In the late summer of 2002, the perfect storm occurred: a small college very near where I lived posted a job opening, for athletic-bands director. It was a college whose band I knew fairly well, since my alma mater and that school had played football regularly while I was a marcher. It would have been a ten-minute commute.

It was part-time – administratively VERY part-time – but that was okay. I applied, I interviewed, they liked me, they offered me the job. Spectacular.

And it was.

Ten years ago next month, I made (what was to that point) the hardest professional decision that was ever obvious: I gave that gig up.

Well, it was so part-time that it wasn’t possible to maintain my full-time public-school music teaching gig and do the Holy Cross job, each, at the level I would have liked to. And, since my full-time job was funding my house … the conclusion I reached was very sad, but very necessary.

I scheduled a meeting with whatever band members were still local, three weeks after classes had ended. They thought it was to talk about next year. In a sense, it was, but not exactly. And, to their enduring credit, when I described my decision to walk away from all this … they spent probably four seconds’ worth of jaw-drop, and then they immediately swung into “how do we move forward?” mode. As much as a band director’s ego could be massaged by an extended period of wailing and gnashing of teeth … much better to see a group of band members become, or continue to be, great leaders.

Starred Thought: “A Drum Major (leader) does what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, whether s/he likes it or not.”

Starred Thought: “A good leader is one that can adapt and overcome in the face of adversity.”

Holy Cross was in good hands, no matter who my successor would be.

As I’ve said many times, at least I can say I did that job for four years, as well as I could; worked with spectacular people; had great experiences … and was in front of a college marching band full of people that worked hard, played hard, entertained people, and with whom I would have traveled anywhere.

I miss it. Thanks to Facebook and such, happily, I get to stay in touch with lots of the good people of Crusader Band Nation. So I get lots of opportunities to flash back to great memories and funny stories.

But I miss it.

But … I did it. And nothing can take that away.

Significant or Successful?

And so, my annual Drum Major Academy teachin’ fortnight draws to a close.

(Actually, it did so a good couple of weeks ago, but life careens onward. You know how that goes.)

To be honest, although I’ve been a part of that rarefied world for seventeen summers, I’m consistently startled at the regularity of one thing: every summer, one thing in particular strikes me as important about what I just experienced … and every summer, it’s a different thing.

One year, it was an appreciation of how DMA staff members take care of business, and take care of their students, and just as importantly take care of each other in moments of crisis (as well as in every other summer moment, and outside of the mere delivery of the curriculum). One year, it was an appreciation of the DMA students, and how social media has allowed them to be their own best support systems, even after the week of instruction is over. One year, it was the recognition that if more groups of teachers were as silly and lunatic and creative as the crowd I get to work with … lots of parts of the world would be in better shape.

In each case, it was an acknowledgment that a DMA week is an intense and concentrated thing, one which has a lasting impact on people – and this is clear not just while six-member student squads do group hugs after the end of the final demonstration for the parents, and not just while the “veterans” (the second- or third-year high-school drum majors who are “crazy enough to come back and do this thing again”) link arms and shed a tear or two or thirty when we play them that song on the last evening.

Talking of veterans and rookies …

I guess I count as a vet, here. Crazy enough (or perhaps it’s some other motivation; yeah, I think) to come back and do this thing thirty-four times now (West Chester and UMass, times 17 summers; because math).

When the staff is briefly introduced to the students by name, early in the week, everybody looks up at the Powerpoint files projected on the screen above the assembled staff’s heads and reads the summary of what each of us do, where we’re from, and how many years we’ve been doing this DMA thing. With very few exceptions, the staff is introduced from newest to most-experienced. And in the last two or three years, I’ve found myself about third-to-last on a bench that usually is twenty or thirty people deep.

Heh. Means I’m old.

It does not, however, mean that I lack for moments in which I definitely don’t feel like a vet.

I’ve run indoor conducting-video analysis sessions a-plenty [side note: who else uses that word anymore?] … I’ve judged tons of squad marching-and-commanding competitions and led lots of pretty productive “postgame” discussions. Lately I’ve even begun to teach mace to absolute beginners (which, for this two-trick pony, is probably about right). But – maybe it’s a little bit about how my brain is wired, but – I look around that room and see so many people whom I consider teaching role models, the quality of whose work I would someday like to at least emulate.

I’d like to think that’s because teachers are always their own toughest critics – always looking for ways they can run that session just a bit better next time.

That feeling doesn’t completely dominate my perceptions all week. When collegiate members of our team, the “IMPACTs” or “CLIP staff”, are assigned to hang out in my TV room or with my company of competition squads, we each seem to learn a bit from each other, and they’re always very kind to suggest that they’ve gotten something out of watching me do my thing. Self-deprecating I may be, but not quite to the point of lockjaw. Shortly many of these kids (and sorry, but they are kids!!) will probably surpass their teachin’ elders, and it’s definitely better that way. Beats the alternative – not least for the sake of DMA. If I can do any tiny thing to make their experience one that they would wish to continue and even pursue as a vocation, … then great.

Two moments from this past two-week summer teaching hitch struck me particularly, with regard to this topic.

First, the out-of-this-world leadership speaker and music-education advocate, Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser, spoke to the West Chester students. He always slips the absolute universal truths in between the belly laughs. Addressing the precarious leadership role into which we’re placing teenaged people, he talked about the “why do you want to be a drum major?” and “are you doing this for the right reasons?” questions. Do you understand that you have the chance to make a difference in people’s lives, or are you just in it for the uniform and the glory? Is it for them or for you? “Do you want to be significant, or do you want to be successful?”

And then, on the last evening of the UMass week, the stellar lead clinician Heidi Sarver had her annual conversation with the students about their opportunity, the biggest of anyone at their school, to make the biggest impact on people in their school. After asking them to remember the people who were important to them when they were rookies – freshmen – she turned it around on them: a few years from now, I’ll ask the DMA students to think about that same subject, and they’ll imagine you.

It’s a pretty effective moment, because suddenly the DMA kids are fully aware that they’re part of a continuum.

And, it occurred to me even more strongly than usual that evening … so am I.

In the summers of 1999 and 2000 and 2001, when I really was a DMA staff rookie, there were people who took me under their wings … gave me a clue … helped me figure out all the mysterious elements that go into teaching at DMA.

I got to hang out in Heidi’s TV room. I looked over Fred’s and Darrell’s shoulders at their “squamp sheets”. I got to watch Jen run her mad, mad, mad morning-calisthenics routine. I got to just generally pick the brains of Jess, and Scott, and Jamie, and Mona. (And, yes, there were numerous others. I think these folks are nicely representative; but I’ve definitely left people out, which is not a good plan. You know who you are; you really do.)

Think of the people who made DMA special for you, my brain translated for me, that evening. And see if you can turn around, just like all those DMA students, and help the next generation as best you can. “Pay it forward” is a nearly-cliched aphorism at this point, but … that’s how this thing survives, and thrives. DMA, and band, and, ideally, the rest of the world too. Boiled down, that’s the point of this fortnight.

Which, ultimately, is thanks to the efforts and inspiration and forethought of the gentleman who thought the whole project up. Who made DMA special for everybody, and continues to do so. Who made it both significant and successful.