{"id":81,"date":"2016-09-29T02:53:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T02:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=81"},"modified":"2016-09-29T11:45:22","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T11:45:22","slug":"a-band-members-second-thoughts-on-homecomings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"A Band Member’s Second Thoughts on Homecomings"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RAHN ADAMS<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You’ll forgive me, I hope, if this column isn’t funny. After last week’s serious essay, I wanted to write something lighthearted and entertaining this week\u2014and I did, I think. But as the preacher of Ecclesiastes says, \u201cThere’s a time and place for everything, and then there’s not,\u201d or something to that effect. Or maybe that was my old senior English teacher.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"img_20160927_093308506\"<\/a>
Official HHS seal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I originally wrote a long, <\/span><\/span>waggish<\/span><\/span> column about that\u2014not about old <\/span><\/span>English teachers like me, but about my old days at Hibriten High School in Lenoir. After all, it’s homecoming <\/span><\/span>there this Friday night<\/span><\/span>\u2014Hibriten’s 50<\/span><\/span>th<\/span><\/span> homecoming, in fact\u2014and I thought it would be fun to write about what defined me as a high school student <\/span><\/span>in the mid-1970s<\/span><\/span>\u2014you know, the noun that <\/span><\/span>filled<\/span><\/span> in the blank in <\/span><\/span>the old <\/span><\/span>Q-and-A, \u201cOh, him? He’s a(n) _____.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Me? I was a band member.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"img_20160927_092355853\"<\/a>
Scrapbook mementos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The colum<\/span><\/span>n that you <\/span><\/span>aren’t<\/i><\/span><\/span> reading now was <\/span><\/span>specifically<\/span><\/span> about <\/span><\/span>that\u2014<\/span><\/span>being a band member <\/span><\/span>at a school where <\/span><\/span>one <\/span><\/span>could be proud of that distinction, not embarrassed by it. I mainly wrote about our outstanding band director, George W. Kirsten, the most influential public school teacher I had in my 13 years of schooling. He was my band director for seven of those years, starting when I was in the sixth grade at Happy Valley Elementary School<\/span><\/span>. I’m glad I took the time to thank him.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Homecoming<\/a>
Homecoming 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A<\/span><\/span>nd, y<\/span><\/span>es, he was a real-life Mr. Holland for all of us, not just for me. If you’re at Jeff Storie Memorial Stadium on Friday evening (Sept. 30), I’m sure you’ll hear the band alumni my age sharing \u201cMr. K stories\u201d as they sit with the marching band to play the Alma Mater <\/span><\/span>once and the fight song every time the Panthers score<\/span><\/span>. I have a feeling they’ll be playing th<\/span><\/span>e<\/span><\/span> fight song often and with pride <\/span><\/span>throughout the game.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, band alumni from other eras will be sharing stories about their own Mr. or Ms. Holland, but about one in particular\u2014Dennis Carswell, who was Hibriten’s band director in the 1990s. According to what I read today on Facebook, Mr. Carswell died yesterday morning in Florida after a period of declining health. I also learned that he’d had a heart transplant in 2001.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I never met Mr. Carswell and knew very little about him before today, only good things I’d heard about his dedication to musical excellence at Hibriten. I remember seeing one particular photo of him with Mr. Kirsten <\/span><\/span>and <\/span><\/span>thinking that <\/span><\/span>the two men <\/span><\/span>looked like kindred spirits, <\/span><\/span>partly <\/span><\/span>because Mr. Carswell sported a black bandmaster’s uniform <\/span><\/span>like the <\/span><\/span>one Mr. K had worn <\/span><\/span>with us<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I’m sure more will be said about Mr. Carswell at the Loving Lenoir 2016 Concert this Sunday, Oct. 2, at 2:30 p.m., at College Avenue Baptist Church in Lenoir.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"img_20160927_093252399\"<\/a>
1977 Commencement Program<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But that’s why I decided against running my original <\/span><\/span>homecoming <\/span><\/span>column\u2014bec<\/span><\/span>ause, as the preacher says, \u201cTo every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.\u201d There’s a time to make jokes. And there’s a time to just be quiet and be thankful.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By RAHN ADAMS You’ll forgive me, I hope, if this column isn’t funny. After last week’s serious essay, I wanted to write something lighthearted and entertaining this week\u2014and I did, I think. But as the preacher of Ecclesiastes says, \u201cThere’s a time and place for everything, and then there’s not,\u201d or something to that effect. … Continue reading A Band Member’s Second Thoughts on Homecomings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}