Of fight songs, band and school reunions

Boola Boola, Boola Boola, Boola Boola, Boola Boola.

Boola Boola, Boola Boola, Boola Boola, Boola Boo.

It doesn’t mean anything and yet the tune keeps playing itself over and over in my head. What made the tune pop into my awareness? What brought it forth when I wasn’t even thinking about school days?

Why did the tune and words pop into my mind just then? Will it go away as it came?

*  *  *

Since the fight song didn’t leave me directly, it gave me a moment to think about school and the field out back of the gymnasium where the band played for the football games held there. As band members, we attended those games, sitting in the east side bleachers and cheering on all the folks with our John Philip Sousa marches that stirred us all, win or lose. At half-time, we marched and played in formation under the lights for the enjoyment of the crowd and then we broke ranks and enjoyed the rest of the game on our own.

I was in that band for four years — pep band, concert band, marching band — and loved every moment of it dressed in our blue uniforms and billed caps, each year adding medals as contest entries added up.

It was while we were visiting at one of my aunt’s and uncle’s home that I first chose to play the clarinet. My cousin was playing his horn and I begged to be given the chance to see if I could make a note on it. He agreed and I got some funny sounds at the beginning. But, when I finally blew a note that sounded like it should, I was sold that the clarinet was for me. My parents took me to Tiss’s Music and Radio Store on Adams Avenue, and I came out the proud owner of a wooden “licorice stick” and a beginner’s instruction book, ready to join the band at the start of school.

First, new students had to apply to the band director for placement in the proper band, beginner’s or senior. Naturally, never having played a horn before, I would be placed in the beginner’s band under director Miss Charlotte Plummer.

Was it the seventh or eighth grade? A difficult time in learning to play the clarinet and I wondered, briefly, if perhaps the senior band director, Mr. Andrew Loney, may have been correct in saying that I couldn’t play my selected instrument because my “embouchure” wasn’t right. Nonetheless, I struggled on in beginner’s band with a poor-quality horn, proud to wear the cape and billed cap giving our group recognition.

When I finally made the senior band in my freshman year and given my blue uniform, there wasn’t a happier member of the band who turned out on picture-taking day. We had to cross the football field to the west side where the visitors bleachers gave the photographer better light.

Unfortunately, after running across the field to join the group assembling for our photo shot, I was discovered not to be wearing a cap, a distinct no-no for the picture.

Mr. Loney, cross at my negligence, sent me back to the school for a cap.

“Wear anything you can find,” he demanded, “and get right back here or you won’t be in the picture.”

Once again I ran across the field and hunted through the cupboard where uniforms were kept, unable to locate a blue cap of the senior band. I did find, what I remember as one of the lighter-colored beginner’s band cap, and clapped it on my head before tearing back across the field one more time to join the band. Tired, embarrassed and obviously not wearing the proper cap, I stood just as proudly with the others while the snapshot was snapped.

It is obvious in the final photograph that my cap is a little different than the others and, also obvious, is the fact that it was too large for my small head.

Does it make a difference after all these years? No, not really in spite of the lingering sense of remembering Mr. Loney’s disdain with the pupil who always seemed to be on the negative side. Mr. Loney was held in high regard by the community and by all of the senior band members. Even though I was afraid of him after having already been found wanting in two areas, I was looking forward to becoming a good clarinet player under his tutelage. He left La Grande the year I moved into the senior band. However, the ensuing years of practicing, gaining a better quality clarinet under the instruction of Mr. Leroy Darling and performing, eventually paid off as I moved into the first clarinet section through challenging. After classmate Kenny Waldroff left to join the service, I was able to retain first chair through my senior year.

Tenacity. Dare to dream your own dream in spite of all odds.

*  *  *

The La Grande High School Class of 1944 hasn’t held a reunion since its 55th in 1999.

A lot has happened to its members since then. It had been a fairly small class to begin with because World War II was under way and many of the young men had left school early in order to serve their country in the military.

Even one of our young women answered the call.

So, when it came to holding a reunion, it was a little difficult to have the usual list upon which to draw its members and beckon them to a reunion 10 years down the line. But, they came. Our first one was held in the Sacajawea Hotel ballroom on the second floor in 1954, the rather traditional span of years before a gathering. We, the hometown organizing committee, were naturally pleased with the response that year and each 10 years after that until we shortened the waiting time to five years. One year we invited the class ahead of us and the class behind us to join in our gathering. It turned out well, for we knew them almost as well as our own. And, then, came the big 50th anniversary in 1994. It, too, was especially well-attended and the bond had only strengthened over the years. With no social divisions, no careers to compare, our children grown and the throes of older age beginning to set-in, we were just old friends, glad to see one another once again.

We tried it again five years later, but it didn’t really work so well, because death had taken so many of us. The efforts of the small local committee were disappointed by a small turn-out and seemingly loss of enthusiasm. Then, even the small local committee lost its strength through death, illness and moving away. Decimated, the desire was there but the Class of 1944 had, regretfully, come to the end of celebration with disappointment as other classes retained their close touch.

Time and circumstances had succeeded in singing our last “Alma Mater” for us, but we left behind a legacy for all to remember the building that had housed the old La Grande High School Class of 1944 and so many others throughout the years. The corner of Fourth Street and M Avenue is dedicated to the many students who had walked those halls over the years by an inscribed stone memorializing the location of the building.

Look that way sometime when you pass by ... and remember.

Veteran newspaperwoman Dorothy Swart Fleshman is a La Grande native whose column, “Dory’s Diary,’’ will run every other Friday.