"Mortification", a guest post by Steve Brundy

 As I get older, I become surer that everyone has those times. You know the ones I mean, the ones between being slightly embarrassed and totally mortified. This story is about the time I was absolutely, positively the most publicly mortified.

It was a long time ago. Thanksgiving day, 1962 to be exact. The Greeley High School marching band had been asked to perform at the Denver Broncos half time show, playing against the New York Titans.

For this appearance I had been assigned to play sousaphone. I was my band teacher’s utility brass man, playing trumpet, baritone, french horn, valve trombone, and even flugelhorn. It was a matter of pride that he had chosen me to be his utility man. It took a lot of work to achieve this status.

Our uniforms were tuxedos with white overlays and tar bucket hats, brand new that year and a source of great pride to us.

The day was extremely windy, as only the wind can be, roaring off the front range of the Rockies.

We marched out onto the field and got into our formation. When we were called to attention, I raised my sousaphone and knocked my hat off! Being at attention meant I could not move, at risk of incurring my band director’s wrath,  so the wind caught my hat and blew it away. I could only watch, mortified.

This was a long time ago, and the TV networks did not cut away for commercials as they do now. Instead, a cameraman, seeing my hat blowing down the field, followed it and kept shooting. So my hat blowing down the field made national TV. The cameraman was nice enough that after the halftime show when we were back in the bleachers, he caught up with my hat and returned it to me, being kind enough not to laugh too hard. Our band teacher was cool enough not to embarrass me any further.


By the way, and just as a side note, did you know the bell of a sousaphone is a great place to keep a bottle of Seagram’s Seven?