My paternal grandparents retired to a sleepy vacation community in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. Outdoor recreation was typically the only form of entertainment to be had, however, there was one annual exception. At the end of every summer, the nearest local hamlet threw a whopper of a celebration. It was an over-the-top, week long festival to honor Native American heritage. Historically, several indigenous tribes had once resided nearby. While setting up makeshift tipis on every single lawn and crowning "Indian" princesses may have been a bit lacking in cultural sensitivity, it was meant to be a sincere homage to the forefathers of the region. A titch misguided perhaps...but the intentions were undoubtedly noble.
This bit of inside knowledge should tell you that I'm not just your average parade spectator. To be honest, being retired from the sport for several decades, I am not entirely certain that baton twirling groups even exist as a thing anymore. I should probably google that lest I receive angry backlash from current gurus of all things baton. I admit I've allowed myself to get a bit rusty. For all you modern baton twirling enthusiasts out there, I apologize in advance for my outdated knowledge of the twirling world. I promise that I wasn't always so complacent. As a little girl, I distinctly remember being mesmerized by all those flashy sequined costumes and amazing baton skills. My father's mother was a great fan of baton twirling, ice skating, and gymnastics and it was she who actually planted the seed in my heart to go after the baton for myself. Not having a lot of local opportunities to partake in either ice skating or gymnastics at the competitive level, she chose to encourage the most readily accessible of the three.
One year, as the parade performers streamed by us, I was cheering them on while simultaneously attempting to chomp a rock hard chunk of chewing gum into submission. It was that cheap kind of bubble gum that typically gets flung from firetrucks and floats. After popping it into my mouth, I was certain that given its density, it must have been a leftover from the previous year. Never one to back down from a challenge, I patiently persevered until that petrified piece of pink putty became pliable once again. As I was in the process of silently admiring my awesome gum chewing accomplishment, my grandmother leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Wouldn't you like to do that some day?" I must have looked puzzled, so she clarified her original question. "Wouldn't you like to wear a pretty costume and learn to twirl a baton like that?"
To be honest, prior to that moment, I had never considered this as a possibility for myself. How exactly did one break into the baton twirling scene? I had no idea. Sure, it seemed glamorous and fun but not very attainable right that second. Maybe someday. I'd have to find a way to work out the logistics. My older sister and I always had a few cheapie drugstore batons lying around the house, but we didn't know anyone who twirled professionally. Long before the Internet could reach every corner of the universe, we relied on ancient things like informational posters and word of mouth. Unfortunately, I didn't have any connections in the baton world and neither did anyone I knew at the time.
As a brief aside, do they even still sell batons at drugstores? I can't recall seeing any the last time I replenished my vitamin stash. Probably a discontinued item due to increased liability. I know I certainly had my own fair share of nearly tragic mishaps with such batons. Due to an obvious design flaw in the bargain baton market, the metal tube would almost always get bent or kinked (like within thirty seconds of ownership). Obviously, a clever marketing ploy as it forced every baton loving little girl in America to pony up for a new model every few months. Far worse than a slightly bent baton was the problem with the durability of the rubber protectors that covered each end. After practicing numerous twirling stunts and dropping the baton no less than one billion times, that hollow metal tube that made up the body of the baton would inevitably work its way through one or both of the rubber end caps. Not only unsightly, it was fraught with danger.
In fact, this little manufacturing design glitch was nearly the end of all things baton for me. In an effort to create the ultimate circus trick, I once attempted to go down our sliding board while twirling a baton. My trusty baton just happened to have an unsafe end cap issue. The metal part had completely busted through the rubber tip. Since the baton budget for that month had already been exhausted, there was zero possibility of procuring an intact replacement. Despite the inherent danger in going forward with the act, I had no choice but to make do with what I had on hand. After all, the show must go on. Needless to say, shortly after my wild descent, that old busted baton ended up in the trash can. I ended up nursing a considerable wound to the face. Blunt force trauma to the chin and bottom lip at the hands of my own bargain basement baton. Fortunately, I didn't need stitches and it didn't scar too much, so all I can do is pass on the following important public service message. Unless you are a bona fide circus performer or a stunt person, baton twirling and sliding boards never mix. Please talk to your children about this today. Don't wait until it's too late. Someday, their beautiful little unscarred faces will thank you.
After this terrifying incident, I decided that maybe baton twirling wasn't for me after all. I temporarily shelved my baton twirling dreams while my face and I recovered. In fact, I almost forgot about my destiny altogether, until one day in the middle of third grade. At the end of the day, the teacher casually passed out a little flyer. A local baton twirling group was seeking new members. I clutched the paper flyer tightly in my hand, eager to get home to ask my mom if I could join. The hour long bus ride through rolling farm country that I was forced to endure every single day seemed extra tedious. Once back home, I bolted off the bus and down our driveway until I finally reached my front door, flung it open, and breathlessly demanded to know if I could sign up for twirling lessons. Oddly enough, my older sister had received the exact same flyer and she too was interested in getting into the baton scene. Who knew? Had my grandmother spoken to her as well?
In our haste to become sequin slathered baton beauties, we both forgot the cardinal household rule. Asking only one parent for permission to do something got you nowhere. I always referred to my parents as The United Front. Prior to age eighteen, it was impossible to do anything in our house unless both parental units signed off on it. They operated together seamlessly and remained an undefeated team. Even if one of them agreed to allow something, the other one still had the power to immediately veto the previous decision without further discussion. To prevent this problem from happening, we were usually required to wait patiently until a mutual agreement between the two of them could be reached. My teenage self is rolling her eyes. My parent self totally gets it, but that does little to placate my teenage self.
Quickly remembering the house rules, my sister and I carefully prepared our individual proposals, submitted them before The United Front, and waited for them to carry out their deliberations behind closed doors. When the committee came to our room, we waited silently, dying to hear the word yes. We were devastated to learn that the final decision would be postponed until the following day. We wanted to yell, kick, scream, pout, and rail about the unfairness of it all, but we knew if we ever wanted the chance to become true twirlers, we would have to stifle ourselves. In an act of solidarity, we both pretended like we were totally okay with waiting until the next morning to find out the answer we desperately wanted. Would we be swathed from head to toe in shiny sequins by summer or would all of our sparkly dreams be dashed?
After a lengthy discussion of the pros and cons of allowing us to become baton twirlers, my sister and I were permitted to attend an informational meeting. This meeting kicked off both of our illustrious baton twirling careers. Once we crossed the threshold of the local fire hall, paid our two dollars, and held our first real baton, all bets were off. We had achieved official twirler status. If we had to drain every last cent from our piggy banks, and walk the five miles from our house to practice each week, we were going to make this thing happen.
Despite such an exciting entrance into the world of baton, I almost ended my career before it ever truly got off the ground. The lady who ran the baton group also owned a dance studio and what I really wanted to do more than anything was to become a ballerina. Unfortunately, dance lessons were more expensive and much farther away so my proposal to switch from baton to ballet was quickly defeated. It was probably for the best. After all, I look terrible in a severely tight bun, and when I finally took a ballet class in college, I found out that I wasn't such a big fan after all. I mean what sounds more fun? Option A: Tiptoeing around in circles to little snippets of classical music while your hair is pulled back so tightly that even blinking requires tremendous effort....orrrrrrrr....Option B: Waving a flaming stick of metal in the air to blaring monster ballads from the eighties with hair so huge it blocks out the sun. C'mon, there is no real choice here.
When I finally got my mitts on a professional grade baton, I was shocked at how weighty the thing actually was in real life. You thought getting poked in the mouth with the pointy end of a worn out, imported, knock off baton hurt? Try getting walloped smack on top of the noggin with a solid rod of stainless steel while attempting to practice advanced baton moves. That's no mere goose egg my friends, that's an extremely painful lump the size of an egg an ostrich would lay. No matter, the inherent danger of inadvertently wounding yourself or others made it all the more compelling.
After weeks of practice, the big day came when we would finally be issued our shiny sequined uniforms. This started out as probably the very best day of my entire life thus far. After a hard day of third grade, and months of practicing, I was about to receive my very own shiny-sequined-bathing-suit-like-leotard thingy. Unfortunately, this incredible vision of loveliness was about to come crashing down around my ears, like scattering a great big bowl of shimmering sequins right into the middle of a giant mud puddle. Unbeknownst to me, the baton twirling group that I had chosen adhered to a very strict "ladylike" dress code. To make matters worse, the outfits also happened to be cowgirl themed. This should not have surprised me. The walls of the local fire hall, where our practices were held, were plastered with glossy group photos of past twirlers. They too were dressed in an odd, feminized form of western wear. I hadn't paid much attention to the dates below each photo. I thought that they were obviously older photos with dowdy retired uniforms from several decades past. How very wrong I was.
Instead of being adorned from shoulder to hip with kilos upon kilos of beautiful shiny sequins, we would end up being dressed up like some kind of cheesy cowpokes. The base of the uniform was a long sleeve red and white polyester smock that fell just above the knee. May I be so bold as to inquire who exactly thought that wearing a long sleeve polyester dress in the heat of July was a grand idea? I'm lucky I was not suddenly overcome by heatstroke halfway through a sweltering summer parade. The dress was further accessorized with a red polyester bandana worn around the neck, red polyester tights for modesty, a giant star-shaped white leather belt, and white leather boots that ended midway up the calf. The whole affair was gloriously topped off with a white plastic cowboy hat. The only available sequins on the entire outfit appeared in the subtle outline of a minuscule red star centered on the belt. The only other cool part of the outfit were the enormous handmade red and white yarn tassels that clipped onto the front of our classy leather booties. Seeing the uniform for the first time was a devastating blow to my original enthusiasm for the sport, especially since the local competition was completely bedazzled in modern outfits with big hair and big make up to match.
Our biggest competitor was an enormous baton twirling outfit from a neighboring town who heartily embraced the height of eighties fashion. Most of us were envious not only of their flashy outfits but also of their extremely attractive drum line. They were at least thirty strong, decked out in awesome fedoras, white pants with matching suspenders, popped collars, duster coats, and white Capezio dance shoes. In contrast, our four drummers were sporting sneakers that may have been white at one time, white dungarees, and red golf shirts with the corps logo embroidered on the chest. Also, they were required to don the exact same white plastic cowboy hats that the girls wore. Any nuance of cool that these cats might have possessed was instantly negated by their wacky get-ups. It didn't help that most of them were prisoners of the sport. Usually, they were siblings of one of the twirlers whose parents were forcing them to participate against their will.
As an adult, I can clearly understand the more modest, universally flattering uniform choices made by our group instructors. Admittedly, it is much more difficult to flatter every body type under skin tight, stretchy sequined fabric. While our outfits may have been able to carefully camouflage some of the tubbier twirlers in the group, it did little to make us feel any better. It was true that the thicker twirlers in the opposing group did look like lil smokies, stuffed into a minuscule swatch of sparkly purple spandex. You could bet that no one in our group could have doubled for a cocktail snack. Still, despite the occasional Twinkie loving twirler among their ranks, next to them, we looked like a big bunch of hillbillies. The fact that we were each generously coated in bright red lipstick with round circles of rouge on our cheeks did not help. Finally, did I mention that it is physically impossible to successfully pull off big hair and mall bangs with a plastic cowboy hat plopped on your melon?
Our campaign to revamp the current uniform was knocked down by both the instructors and the parents. While we girls were learning the tricky art of baton twirling, the mothers and a few fathers camped out in the back of the fire hall on wooden folding chairs while we rehearsed our routines. Truth be told it was a bit like a baton parent cult. I think the moms and dads who had gotten sucked in simply wanted other people to share in their misery. It was commonplace to encourage others to join the group: friends, family members, coworkers, acquaintances, even complete and total strangers. Once you were in, it was very hard to leave even though the time commitment was fairly overwhelming. During the school year, practices were held once a week until the season finally began gearing up sometime in late winter or early spring. It's hard for me to discern which as I grew up just south of the Great Lakes. Lake effect weather turned winter and spring into a muddy, slushy sort of blur with summer arriving sometime in mid July.
Summer was the height of the baton circuit. There were a handful of parades in May and June but it wasn't until July that things really got serious. That meant that within a fifty mile radius, there was at least one, possibly two parades held every single weekend. We had formerly spent every weekend at camp with our grandparents. Suddenly, we found ourselves crisscrossing the western half of the state in search of trophies and baton twirling glory. My mom was a trooper. She dutifully prepared us for each and every appearance and drove my sister and I to the starting point of every parade. She watched and waved from the sidelines, snapped photos, and even filmed videos which was not the easy phone wielding task it is today. She had to walk backwards while toting one of those honking huge video recorders on her shoulder. Trying to hold it steady so that future viewers could watch without succumbing to motion sickness was a chore.
Speaking of chores, I will readily admit there were days when I wasn't all that jazzed about going to practices and parades. There were lots of summery things I missed, like sleepovers, weenie roasts, family gatherings, and camping trips. All sacrifices I happily made in honor of my chosen sport. Truth in disclosure...I should edit that to say my mother forced me to make. It was not her idea to join the baton cult, but she had very strong feelings about what it meant to be a reliable member of the group. She was no stage mother that's for sure, but in her book, if you made a commitment, you stuck to it no matter what. Unless you were barfing in a bathroom somewhere, you better grab your shiny baton and your little synthetic cowgirl uniform and saddle up. Supposedly, if you missed a practice or a parade or forgot part of your polyester outfit, you received something called a demerit as punishment. To my knowledge this was an empty threat that never actually happened...to anyone...ever. Lots of other girls skipped practice or missed parades. Despite the obvious lack of consequences, my sister and I were NOT among them. We were dependable folks and come hell or high water, my mother made sure that unless genuinely ill, we made it to each and every practice and participated in every single parade on the schedule.
She didn't stop there. You could always depend on my mom to be punctual and prepared. Even if she had just been yelling in the car because my sister and I were arguing for the fifteen millionth time that morning, she would still arrive poised and calm. My sister and I followed suit as we knew the car ride home would be anything but pleasant if we weren't well behaved in public. The fact that any post parade treats would be immediately nixed if either of us were out of line also helped the cause. This didn't stop my sister and I from giving each other the stink eye from time to time, but being in different age groups kept us from continuing a previous argument. Not only was my mom helpful with her two daughters' parade preparation and participation, you could also count on her to help out with fundraisers. She happily raised her hand whenever parent volunteers were requested. A true team player.
This is how she ended up turning the entire second floor of our house into a makeshift hoagie making factory. My siblings and I had been part of a club at school that raised money by selling hoagies. (For those of you who may not already know, a "hoagie" is a regional term referring to the submarine sandwich.) Food sales were not an unusual type of fundraiser but the teacher in charge of this particular club had discovered a surefire way to greatly increase the profit margin. If students were responsible for making the sub sandwiches themselves, instead of contracting the orders out to a local deli, the money savings was huge. Here's how it worked: If you were a member of the club, you took requests on an order form, collected the cash, and handed it in. The orders were then tallied and the necessary sandwich supplies were procured. The following Saturday, all club members were required to show up at the school cafeteria at the crack of dawn. You would pull on plastic gloves, and spend the next six hours standing over a huge hoagie making assembly line. It was a long day of slapping cheese, cold cuts, and condiments on hoagie roll after hoagie roll before finally stuffing the sandwiches into plastic bags and stacking them onto towering palates. When every last sandwich was stuffed, your order would be filled and you would race to deliver the subs before food borne illness could take hold.
My mom brought this fundraising idea to the gals and guys that made up the dedicated group of baton twirling
As mentioned in an earlier post, my parents lived in an extremely small house for many years. The payoff was that suffering such cramped quarters for so long allowed them to sock away cash to build their dream home. My dad designed it and by his own admission, he may have gotten a bit carried away after sharing such a tiny home with four other people. This was way before tiny homes were a thing and my mom could have made millions with her super savvy storage solutions if only the Internet had existed. Anyway, it was true that we had plenty of space in our new house, so for an entire day, the main floor of our home was transformed into a giant hoagie making plant. When I came home from school, carts of hoagies were parked up and down the hallway leading to our bedrooms. The entire living room was filled with subs from one end to the other and the work on the assembly line that stretched from our laundry room, through our kitchen, and practically into our garage was just wrapping up. By the time my dad got home from work, all of the subs had found new homes. The only evidence of the sub making extravaganza was that the house smelled like the back room of a deli. It took weeks for that smell to entirely dissipate from the house. A small price to pay for fundraising success. Now maybe we could talk the head of the group into springing for some sparkly new uniforms.
We were finally able to convince our fearless leaders to modernize the uniforms at least for the oldest twirlers. We still wore the signature red polyester frocks, but they were sleeveless which made them much more humane on sizzling summer parade routes. They were accessorized with sequined collars and matching sparkly arm bling that we proudly sported on each forearm. We also ditched the cowboy hat in favor of fluffier more trendy hairdos. Unfortunately, the younger twirlers still looked like a bunch of extras who had escaped from a dude ranch on Broadway. As long as I didn't have to wear those kooky clothes anymore, I was happy.
My baton twirling career came to an end just before I started high school. We did not have majorettes in our marching band and for their own sanity, my parent's placed limits on the number of after school activities we could participate in. I had a few too many, so baton twirling ended up on the chopping block. It was without much fanfare or hoopla as my baton twirling days had just about run their course. I doubt that my mom was sad to get Wednesday nights and summer weekends to herself again. Our home would never again be overrun by hundreds of hoagies waiting for a home. It was a good run despite its overall lack of sequins.
So where did all this baton twirling get me? I missed out on tons of fun in the name of my chosen commitment. I didn't earn a twirling scholarship in college. My mother ran herself ragged supporting us. I made some good friends but most of us have since gone our separate ways. To this day, my non-twirling friends and family routinely mock my baton sporting past. But...there is one singular moment that has made all of those sacrifices and enduring regular harassment completely worthwhile. It happened during one of my very first parades in a tiny town not far from my grandparent's little home in the woods. Oddly enough, it was not the same parade that I usually attended with them. For some reason, we never actually marched in that one. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that traditionally
Anyway, on that beautiful summer day, I clearly remember anxiously scanning each and every face along the parade route hoping to single out my grandparents. I knew they would be in attendance and I couldn't wait to catch a glimpse of them. It ended up being the one and only parade that my grandmother ever got to see me march in. Of course, at the time, no one knew that our remaining time together would be so short. Finally, I caught their eye. It was early in my career and I probably wasn't very good, but to my grandmother, it didn't matter. From the look on her face at that moment, I might as well have just become a Rockette. She was over the moon to see us living the dream. I can still picture her beautiful smiling face cheering us on. I'm certain that just like me she was expecting the uniforms to have a few more sparkles and sequins, however, she successfully camouflaged any disappointment she was feeling. Oblivious to the overall lack of wardrobe bling, my grandfather proudly stood beside his wife with his arm wrapped casually around her waist. They were perched on the edge of the curb, side by side, smiling at us and waving. Even now, despite the fact that my baton twirling days are long gone, the way they looked on that particular day is one of my favorite ways to picture the two of them in my mind. Also, despite the fact that it deviates from reality, in my own imagination, I throw in wayyyyy more sequins!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment