I love a great march

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A parade without a marching band is like peanut butter without jelly, Sonny without Cher or Donnie without Marie.
That something was missing last Thursday during the Gasconade County Fair Parade because Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) rules prohibit bands from marching when the wet globe thermometer reading (which estimates the effect of temperature, humidity, wind speed and infrared radiation) is over 92 degrees.
I love a great march — a song that is. My grandfather, Ralph Warden, had a vinyl record of 50 great marches in his collection. Whenever we visited as a young boy, the first thing I would do was to put that on the turntable.
Coming out of the old speakers on grandpa’s console was the wonderful music of John Philip Sousa, including “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (the national march for the United States), “The Washington Post” (written at the request of the newspaper of the same name in 1889) and “Semper fidelis” (the official march of the U.S. Marines), along with other composers’ marches. I love them all.
Perhaps that is why I’m so patriotic.
In the ’70s, when I was a young teenager, I too was part of the marching band. I played my trumpet and marched to the cadence of the drums for the 1.2-mile county fair parade in Owensville, led by director Charlie Feagan.
We practiced every morning on the town streets the week before the parade, honing our marching skills and learning the music we would march to that year.
For the last several years, the band has marched down First Street to Memorial Park in black shorts, an orange band t-shirt and tennis shoes.
Not so for us.
We marched wearing long pants from our band uniform, a white shirt along with black shoes. The uniform worn in that decade was made of a heavy wool material that could almost withstand the destructive heat of a blow torch. Any heavier, and the fire department could have worn them to fight fires.
When we marched in the county parade on July 29, 1976, the temperature was 88 degrees in St. Louis at 5 o’clock, according to wunderground.com. It was only 84 degrees for the parade in 1977.
I am not saying that MSHSAA was wrong to keep our teenagers from marching on Thursday when the temperature hit 95 degrees at 5 p.m. But, I am grateful that that bureaucratic organization had no control over the approximately 100 men, women and children who marched in the heat that day.
They included nine members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) who led Thursday’s parade with Old Glory as most along the parade route stood and placed their hands over their hearts in respect. The senior member in the color guard was 83-years-old. They marched proudly in black dress pants, a white shirt and black leather shoes.
This was not the first time they have sweat for us.
Thanks to everyone, young and old, who marches every year — no matter the temperature, hot or cold — in our local parades in Owensville, Gerald, Belle, Vienna and Linn.
Note: Sousa (1854-1932), known as the American March King, composed 136 marches over his lifetime.