The Reality Of Time Travel: Cal Band Alumni Day

By Christian Lipski

General Douglas MacArthur said, “Old soldiers never die; they merely fade away.” Some former Band members can’t even fade away. For them there is Alumni Band Day.
—from The Pride of California: A Cal Band Centennial Celebration

I really can’t remember the last time my whole body was so sore that it was difficult to move. Riding the train to the San Francisco airport, I am glad for the time of inactivity so that my muscles can knit themselves back together. I just spent the day, sunup to sundown, putting myself through more physical activity than I have in years, and I know I’ll be paying for it for a while.

For four years, I was a member of the UC Berkeley Marching Band, playing snare drum and trying to fit studying in where I could. It was a fantastic time, but for some reason I never made it to the yearly get-together and halftime performance that is held for graduated students. There was always something that came up, or it was too far away—always a reason not to attend. This year, though, I was determined to go. It had been 19 years since I last marched and played, but I promised friends that I’d go.

I played the snare drum, so I don’t actually own a marching snare. Most other musicians bought their instruments at the time, but seriously, there’s not much use for a marching snare outside of marching band. As a result, I needed to arrive to the band room early to scrounge up one to play. Arising at 4:45 a.m. to the ominous sound of a thunderstorm, I got ready, and my wife dropped me off at campus in the early dark of the day.

Working with one of the equipment room guys, I cobbled together a drum and harness, but the bottom drum head was broken, so I waited for the regular band to start arriving and borrowed a drum key so I could replace the head as I walked up to the practice field. I was lucky, as the next guy to arrive got a harness and drum that weren’t compatible, so he had to tie them together with the clever application of a coat hanger. The regular band’s membership is at an all-time high, so there were few extra instruments for us.

The coat-hanger guy in question was in fact a friend I went to high school with, so we got to reminisce on the walk up to the practice field. He was little changed from our college days, and I have a feeling he felt the same. It’s only natural to slip back into the patterns of the time, to put on traces of your old personality. I did suspect, however, that the location of the field itself had been changed, by an engineering feat that somehow raised its altitude and caused the inclination of the walk to approach 45 degrees. By the time we arrived at Maxwell Field, I was out of breath and sweaty, at 8 a.m.

Dining on the breakfast of champions (donuts and coffee), we elder bandsmen milled around and greeted one another. I saw Yasuo, who was my section leader when I was a freshman, and we caught each other up on our histories. It’s funny to realize that people changed and lived real lives in the 19 years since you saw them, and even funnier to recognize the ways in which they remained exactly the same. In my own memory, I was kind of a loud anti-establishment guy who mocked the rigid discipline of the band and partied very hard wherever possible. It was certainly a shock when a few people told me I was their favorite section leader back in the day. I have a feeling that despite my acting out, I was dedicated to giving the best performance when halftime came around, but my own memory tends to choose the more embarrassing moments to frame and hang over the mantel.

The weather was horrible: low clouds and bursts of rain throughout the morning. This ended up scaring off a number of alums, so we were in a bit of a bind, as the marching routine was designed with a larger number in mind. It was up to three or four intrepid women, many of them past drum majors (and one of whom was eight months pregnant), to re-chart the show in the hour we had to learn and rehearse it. I regretted my decision to not download and learn the music ahead of time, but looking around at my fellow Old Blues, it seemed that musical and technical prowess was secondary to reliving our glory days. Our remaining skills were enough to get us by, and I wasn’t too worried about the marching: the revised flow was even simpler and hell, there were 80-year-olds marching with me, so no way was I going to be overburdened physically.

After struggling through a couple of practice run-throughs, we dragged our damp selves into Memorial Stadium to practice on the real field. Part of the halftime show is the traditional spelling of “California” with the help of the current band, so we needed to run through that. I hadn’t been to a game in Berkeley since 1990, so I took a little time to soak in the feeling of being on the turf again.

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