The director's retirement reception
Wednesday was our rehearsal. Thursday was our concert. Friday: The reception.
Thursday had been such a wild day, what with my car and the adrenaline of the concert and everything. I think it was after midnight before I went to bed. That then made Friday a long day, and I worked a little late to boot. I wanted to make up some of my missed time on Thursday, plus I'd be going to the reception from work and it wasn't that far, maybe 20 minutes away. Cocktail hour started at 6. I didn't need to get there right away.
When I finally did leave, and got to the golf club, I parked next to one of the euphonium players and his wife. He saw the personalized plates on the Sienna and went, what does that stand for? Toyota loaner is what that stands for, heh. It was funny; when we walked in and heard the generic classical music playing inside as we walked down the hall to our room, the euph player went, at least it's not marches! I said, we're not there yet. Sure enough, once we got to our room, there were marches playing. Of course.
We were greeted by A the trumpet player, the one who is super talkative and bossy; she let us know we had assigned seating and to check the little table in the hall for our cards. They said our names, our table numbers, and our meal choice. Mine read "meat," which was funny for when the serrated knives were passed out--only the "meat" people got theirs first. The chicken people were going, uh, chicken is considered meat. Ultimately the chicken was tender enough to not really need a knife; the prime rib--beef, really--did require a knife. The vegetarian option ended up being lasagna. Better, I was all exciting thinking I was getting beef Wellington. The people I was talking to went, uh, I thought it was prime rib? Whoops. Whatever. It was free to me so I ate it, heh.
There were a decent amount of people there when I arrived. I ended up at table 13. Along the back wall you had 10, 11, 12, 13...5? How did that happen? One of the table 5 denizens showed up and said that his table had been up closer to the front, but then he realized there was a (rather substantial) pole blocking the table's view of the video screen; there was a slide show after dinner, so the table got moved back. I felt bad as there were a couple of elderly people at that table and they had to walk through the whole place, through all the other tables and chairs, to reach their table. That didn't seem fair.
Meanwhile, back at table 13, the only other cards on it were for C our visiting flute player and her husband, so I set my card next to hers. Next came P, a former sax player whom I knew prior to joining band. She and I were both single so we ended up seated by each other; the rest of our table were married couples, three other flutes and a clarinet player. P was none too happy to be surrounded by flutes, so when the clarinet player, S, and his wife showed up, I went, see, we're the woodwind table! I should point out that P is also the cannon lady, letting the cannoneers know when to shoot the cannons during 1812. She was funny, saying she was glad she wasn't seated next to some weirdo. I went, you think I'm not a weirdo? She went, you're a known weirdo. ...Fair.
I was freaking exhausted and really hungry when I first got there, so I just sat in my chair for a long time. Big clarinet B came over to say hi to me and P; he's how I found out we weren't having beef Wellington. Honestly, right then, I would've taken whatever hunk of meat they were willing to give us. Eventually salads and rolls got passed around, and this was at a fancy country club, so they had butter balls on a plate, like if they'd taken a melon baller to a big container of butter and gone to town. And, while eating the salad, this was how we first discovered that S the clarinet player is a picky eater. First his wife picked out the salad leaves she liked from his plate, I think it was. Then, when the meals came out, he'd picked the chicken, which was some sort of lemon chicken with capers, cooked spinach, and three potato wedges, which were not to his liking so he didn't eat them. But when dessert came along--a brownie topped with ice cream and whipped cream--he dug right in. I teased him by saying, you didn't eat your dinner, you don't get dessert! Go to your room! His wife laughed at that. I'd also asked him what his preferred meal would be. I remember him saying fried chicken specifically, and the rest of what he answered sounded like what you might get at KFC or, back in the day, Brown's Chicken. Maybe a Swanson's dinner. I guess he wasn't introduced to spices back in his childhood and he prefers his food to be relatively plain. That was really amusing to discover.
I was so hungry I may well have devoured his food had the prime rib not been so huge. S's wife mentioned how salty her beef was, which was weird; I hadn't encountered that at all. It was covered in gravy as well, which seemed odd to me. She thought the gravy was salty. I had been eating the pinker part of the meat, including gravy, before realizing there was a darker portion. Now *that* was salty. I'm guessing there was some sort of crust on the seared part of the meat. I did like it, though, and ate all the darker part. I couldn't finish the whole piece as it was too big for me. We also got these really long, like probably 8" long potatoes. The bottom half was baked but the top half was twice baked. Too bad they weren't fully the twice baked part; that was really good.
After dinner I went to the bathroom, and the bathroom was fancy. Each stall was like a small room, though what confused me was that the purse hook was super high up, above my head, yet the toilet was so low you'd think it was for a toddler. Weird. The doors had frosted glass on them, and the locks doubled as indicators of whether the stall was occupied or not. The soap was scented to a degree that I could smell the perfume a while later. I'd end up going before I left as well and kept smelling...something...and wondered, did I get too close to someone that their perfume rubbed off on me? Why do I keep smelling that? Then it dawned on me: It's my hands! It's the soap from the bathroom!
When I returned to the reception, I discovered table 10, right by the door, was the party table. Among others, you had J the bassoon player (AKA Amaryllis), C the oboe player, A the trumpet player, B the big clarinet player, all these younger band members...and C the band manager, who is more like their moms' age. How did C get in with this table and I ended up at 13? Bah. They got pretty boisterous as the night went on, too, and when I went to visit them, C the oboe player started clinking on her glass like at a wedding reception to see if the director might kiss his wife. She said, he almost did it! It was around that time that dessert started getting passed around, and to my chagrin it included ice cream, but I asked one of the waitresses if there were any plain brownies and she said there were a few and she could get me one. Great; I'm at table 13. Once I sat back down, I saw a different waitress walking with a plain brownie, almost make it to my table, then turn around and walk away before I could get her attention. Wait...come back... But when my whole table got their desserts, my plain brownie was there. P was mad, saying she'd have eaten my ice cream. I told her, if I'd have known you were my date tonight, I would have done things differently! (Truth be told, no, I didn't want ice cream on my brownie at all. Sorry, P. I have to watch what I put in my body sometimes.)
It was while we were having dessert that the talking portion of the reception started. I think this was when we introduced the visitors, former band members joining us that evening. I happened to have two them sitting on either side of me. H, our emcee, introduced P, among others, but completely forgot about C on my other side and we had to wave to get his attention to announce that C was there. Better, just before that, he'd completely forgotten that his good friend M was there as well; it was M's wife who'd offered to play the piccolo solo with me. M had left the band before I joined. Other guests included DU, a former trumpet player, and LW, a former French horn player and the former cranky librarian; he wasn't looking that great, rather frail, and he's the one I felt bad about having to maneuver his way between all the chairs to get to table 5. (I know there were more; I'm just blanking.)
Someone requested that the director's wife introduce all the family members who were in attendance, since we couldn't necessarily see or hear what was going on during the concert. One cute moment came when she introduced a particular granddaughter and didn't know how to describe the girl's beau; I think she ultimately used "partner." She said, we've been trying to get him to be "fiancé" but he's not going for it! HA! Go grandma.
There were a number of planned speakers. H the emcee told an unfortunate story involving the guy at the circus who gives enemas to the elephants...during dessert... (TIMING, H!). B the longtime trombone player told a story of travels in older cars, saying they don't make 'em like they used to, and ended his story by saying about the director, just like the cars, they don't make 'em like they used to. It was a good story and B told it well. You wouldn't know by listening to him that he's 90. C the band manager put together a slideshow of pictures from throughout the director's life, including some family pictures and some more professional ones care of the local paper. In fact, the family that runs the local paper was there, since they've been big proponents of the band over the years. The son, who's the photographer, was there, alternating between taking pictures and eating. The paper family got asked if they could make an album out of the pictures taken at the concert and the reception, and they said, talk to him! And pointed to the son, who was against the back wall getting more pictures. He was like, uh, maybe? (P then leaned over and said, for the right price, sure!) And the band's emcee sat there and read off her notes to share her memories. She and the director grew up in the same neighborhood, but they're almost a decade apart, so he was more of a pipsqueak to her back then. It wasn't until they were both adults that they became friends. AG, our guest conductor, shared how he became friends with the director over 40 years ago now; they met through a circus music group that AG joined when he was about 20 (he said it was a while before he had a girlfriend, heh), and all these older members took him under their wings and made him feel welcome, which was so nice for him as a young man.
There were gifts. C the band manager presented the director with a binder full of stories shared by band and audience members. R, one of the clarinet players, and T the band president had more gifts. R had a coupon booklet of activities for the next year, one per month, to keep the director in the social loop with the band. And T had two CDs. One included 13 of the 16 marches the director composed (that might have been what was playing when I arrived); with help from a couple band members, they were able to find recordings of all but 3 of the marches, and they're still looking for the last three. Also, the concert from the night before had been recorded as well, so he now has a recording of his final concert. (...I may be curious about how that last song sounds.) I think there were other gifts but I don't recall them at the moment.
Band members were also asked to tell quick stories if they wanted, so a few people told stories about some of the director's non-band hobbies. G the euphonium player reminded us of the director's love of trains, and G had worked for Metra for years and was able to take the director on a train ride up in the conductor's area. DU, the former trumpet player, told of a fishing trip on Lake Michigan where a storm blew up and DU was concerned they wouldn't make it back to shore. The director said, we have to! We have a rehearsal tonight! And D the flute player said that the director liked to garden and once grew these huge zucchinis, to where every person in her orbit got a zucchini loaf care of this gigantic zucchini she'd gotten from him. It only takes two cups of zucchini to make a loaf. It must've made at least 10 loaves.
All in all, it was a really nice evening and a great way to celebrate the director. When I went to the bathroom upon leaving, he went about the same time, so a few of us were talking to him afterward outside the restrooms. He was using a cane. That was unusual, only because I never recall seeing him with a cane at band, but given how he's been walking as of late it wasn't a surprise. He got another hug from me and I got to tell him it was my honor to play the piccolo solo for him the night before. When I got out to my car, there were D the euph player and his wife again, and we got to talking about cars; they have a Juke, which was a loaner I'd driven once upon a time. D's wife is rather chatty and D had to tell her, okay, let her go home, she worked all day and she's tired! No kidding. Four late nights in a row did me in. I couldn't stay awake by the time I got to Saturday afternoon.
Thursday had been such a wild day, what with my car and the adrenaline of the concert and everything. I think it was after midnight before I went to bed. That then made Friday a long day, and I worked a little late to boot. I wanted to make up some of my missed time on Thursday, plus I'd be going to the reception from work and it wasn't that far, maybe 20 minutes away. Cocktail hour started at 6. I didn't need to get there right away.
When I finally did leave, and got to the golf club, I parked next to one of the euphonium players and his wife. He saw the personalized plates on the Sienna and went, what does that stand for? Toyota loaner is what that stands for, heh. It was funny; when we walked in and heard the generic classical music playing inside as we walked down the hall to our room, the euph player went, at least it's not marches! I said, we're not there yet. Sure enough, once we got to our room, there were marches playing. Of course.
We were greeted by A the trumpet player, the one who is super talkative and bossy; she let us know we had assigned seating and to check the little table in the hall for our cards. They said our names, our table numbers, and our meal choice. Mine read "meat," which was funny for when the serrated knives were passed out--only the "meat" people got theirs first. The chicken people were going, uh, chicken is considered meat. Ultimately the chicken was tender enough to not really need a knife; the prime rib--beef, really--did require a knife. The vegetarian option ended up being lasagna. Better, I was all exciting thinking I was getting beef Wellington. The people I was talking to went, uh, I thought it was prime rib? Whoops. Whatever. It was free to me so I ate it, heh.
There were a decent amount of people there when I arrived. I ended up at table 13. Along the back wall you had 10, 11, 12, 13...5? How did that happen? One of the table 5 denizens showed up and said that his table had been up closer to the front, but then he realized there was a (rather substantial) pole blocking the table's view of the video screen; there was a slide show after dinner, so the table got moved back. I felt bad as there were a couple of elderly people at that table and they had to walk through the whole place, through all the other tables and chairs, to reach their table. That didn't seem fair.
Meanwhile, back at table 13, the only other cards on it were for C our visiting flute player and her husband, so I set my card next to hers. Next came P, a former sax player whom I knew prior to joining band. She and I were both single so we ended up seated by each other; the rest of our table were married couples, three other flutes and a clarinet player. P was none too happy to be surrounded by flutes, so when the clarinet player, S, and his wife showed up, I went, see, we're the woodwind table! I should point out that P is also the cannon lady, letting the cannoneers know when to shoot the cannons during 1812. She was funny, saying she was glad she wasn't seated next to some weirdo. I went, you think I'm not a weirdo? She went, you're a known weirdo. ...Fair.
I was freaking exhausted and really hungry when I first got there, so I just sat in my chair for a long time. Big clarinet B came over to say hi to me and P; he's how I found out we weren't having beef Wellington. Honestly, right then, I would've taken whatever hunk of meat they were willing to give us. Eventually salads and rolls got passed around, and this was at a fancy country club, so they had butter balls on a plate, like if they'd taken a melon baller to a big container of butter and gone to town. And, while eating the salad, this was how we first discovered that S the clarinet player is a picky eater. First his wife picked out the salad leaves she liked from his plate, I think it was. Then, when the meals came out, he'd picked the chicken, which was some sort of lemon chicken with capers, cooked spinach, and three potato wedges, which were not to his liking so he didn't eat them. But when dessert came along--a brownie topped with ice cream and whipped cream--he dug right in. I teased him by saying, you didn't eat your dinner, you don't get dessert! Go to your room! His wife laughed at that. I'd also asked him what his preferred meal would be. I remember him saying fried chicken specifically, and the rest of what he answered sounded like what you might get at KFC or, back in the day, Brown's Chicken. Maybe a Swanson's dinner. I guess he wasn't introduced to spices back in his childhood and he prefers his food to be relatively plain. That was really amusing to discover.
I was so hungry I may well have devoured his food had the prime rib not been so huge. S's wife mentioned how salty her beef was, which was weird; I hadn't encountered that at all. It was covered in gravy as well, which seemed odd to me. She thought the gravy was salty. I had been eating the pinker part of the meat, including gravy, before realizing there was a darker portion. Now *that* was salty. I'm guessing there was some sort of crust on the seared part of the meat. I did like it, though, and ate all the darker part. I couldn't finish the whole piece as it was too big for me. We also got these really long, like probably 8" long potatoes. The bottom half was baked but the top half was twice baked. Too bad they weren't fully the twice baked part; that was really good.
After dinner I went to the bathroom, and the bathroom was fancy. Each stall was like a small room, though what confused me was that the purse hook was super high up, above my head, yet the toilet was so low you'd think it was for a toddler. Weird. The doors had frosted glass on them, and the locks doubled as indicators of whether the stall was occupied or not. The soap was scented to a degree that I could smell the perfume a while later. I'd end up going before I left as well and kept smelling...something...and wondered, did I get too close to someone that their perfume rubbed off on me? Why do I keep smelling that? Then it dawned on me: It's my hands! It's the soap from the bathroom!
When I returned to the reception, I discovered table 10, right by the door, was the party table. Among others, you had J the bassoon player (AKA Amaryllis), C the oboe player, A the trumpet player, B the big clarinet player, all these younger band members...and C the band manager, who is more like their moms' age. How did C get in with this table and I ended up at 13? Bah. They got pretty boisterous as the night went on, too, and when I went to visit them, C the oboe player started clinking on her glass like at a wedding reception to see if the director might kiss his wife. She said, he almost did it! It was around that time that dessert started getting passed around, and to my chagrin it included ice cream, but I asked one of the waitresses if there were any plain brownies and she said there were a few and she could get me one. Great; I'm at table 13. Once I sat back down, I saw a different waitress walking with a plain brownie, almost make it to my table, then turn around and walk away before I could get her attention. Wait...come back... But when my whole table got their desserts, my plain brownie was there. P was mad, saying she'd have eaten my ice cream. I told her, if I'd have known you were my date tonight, I would have done things differently! (Truth be told, no, I didn't want ice cream on my brownie at all. Sorry, P. I have to watch what I put in my body sometimes.)
It was while we were having dessert that the talking portion of the reception started. I think this was when we introduced the visitors, former band members joining us that evening. I happened to have two them sitting on either side of me. H, our emcee, introduced P, among others, but completely forgot about C on my other side and we had to wave to get his attention to announce that C was there. Better, just before that, he'd completely forgotten that his good friend M was there as well; it was M's wife who'd offered to play the piccolo solo with me. M had left the band before I joined. Other guests included DU, a former trumpet player, and LW, a former French horn player and the former cranky librarian; he wasn't looking that great, rather frail, and he's the one I felt bad about having to maneuver his way between all the chairs to get to table 5. (I know there were more; I'm just blanking.)
Someone requested that the director's wife introduce all the family members who were in attendance, since we couldn't necessarily see or hear what was going on during the concert. One cute moment came when she introduced a particular granddaughter and didn't know how to describe the girl's beau; I think she ultimately used "partner." She said, we've been trying to get him to be "fiancé" but he's not going for it! HA! Go grandma.
There were a number of planned speakers. H the emcee told an unfortunate story involving the guy at the circus who gives enemas to the elephants...during dessert... (TIMING, H!). B the longtime trombone player told a story of travels in older cars, saying they don't make 'em like they used to, and ended his story by saying about the director, just like the cars, they don't make 'em like they used to. It was a good story and B told it well. You wouldn't know by listening to him that he's 90. C the band manager put together a slideshow of pictures from throughout the director's life, including some family pictures and some more professional ones care of the local paper. In fact, the family that runs the local paper was there, since they've been big proponents of the band over the years. The son, who's the photographer, was there, alternating between taking pictures and eating. The paper family got asked if they could make an album out of the pictures taken at the concert and the reception, and they said, talk to him! And pointed to the son, who was against the back wall getting more pictures. He was like, uh, maybe? (P then leaned over and said, for the right price, sure!) And the band's emcee sat there and read off her notes to share her memories. She and the director grew up in the same neighborhood, but they're almost a decade apart, so he was more of a pipsqueak to her back then. It wasn't until they were both adults that they became friends. AG, our guest conductor, shared how he became friends with the director over 40 years ago now; they met through a circus music group that AG joined when he was about 20 (he said it was a while before he had a girlfriend, heh), and all these older members took him under their wings and made him feel welcome, which was so nice for him as a young man.
There were gifts. C the band manager presented the director with a binder full of stories shared by band and audience members. R, one of the clarinet players, and T the band president had more gifts. R had a coupon booklet of activities for the next year, one per month, to keep the director in the social loop with the band. And T had two CDs. One included 13 of the 16 marches the director composed (that might have been what was playing when I arrived); with help from a couple band members, they were able to find recordings of all but 3 of the marches, and they're still looking for the last three. Also, the concert from the night before had been recorded as well, so he now has a recording of his final concert. (...I may be curious about how that last song sounds.) I think there were other gifts but I don't recall them at the moment.
Band members were also asked to tell quick stories if they wanted, so a few people told stories about some of the director's non-band hobbies. G the euphonium player reminded us of the director's love of trains, and G had worked for Metra for years and was able to take the director on a train ride up in the conductor's area. DU, the former trumpet player, told of a fishing trip on Lake Michigan where a storm blew up and DU was concerned they wouldn't make it back to shore. The director said, we have to! We have a rehearsal tonight! And D the flute player said that the director liked to garden and once grew these huge zucchinis, to where every person in her orbit got a zucchini loaf care of this gigantic zucchini she'd gotten from him. It only takes two cups of zucchini to make a loaf. It must've made at least 10 loaves.
All in all, it was a really nice evening and a great way to celebrate the director. When I went to the bathroom upon leaving, he went about the same time, so a few of us were talking to him afterward outside the restrooms. He was using a cane. That was unusual, only because I never recall seeing him with a cane at band, but given how he's been walking as of late it wasn't a surprise. He got another hug from me and I got to tell him it was my honor to play the piccolo solo for him the night before. When I got out to my car, there were D the euph player and his wife again, and we got to talking about cars; they have a Juke, which was a loaner I'd driven once upon a time. D's wife is rather chatty and D had to tell her, okay, let her go home, she worked all day and she's tired! No kidding. Four late nights in a row did me in. I couldn't stay awake by the time I got to Saturday afternoon.