When SCV went on their very first tours through the Midwest (1968-69) we only had two buses, an equipment truck (Clarabell) and three cars that were loaded with kids. Two rented station wagons and Gail Royer’s Buick Riveria. As we traveled going west there was no such thing as Miss Amana. The best we could do was send the cars out to get food like cereal and milk for breakfast that we ate out of Dixie cups with plastic spoons. Maybe some juice and donuts if we were lucky but that was breakfast. Other times we’d stop at a grocery store and pick up loafs of bread and meat (mostly baloney) and pass through the bus and hopefully there was enough to reach those in the back of the bus. Not the greatest but it got us through those first few years of touring. Unlike today’s drum corps who travel at night, we traveled during the day. The afternoon/evenings were for practice with dinner squeezed in.
Our main meals during those early years were at stops in the middle of towns as we traveled. The buses would pull into some small town and then we’d all unload and head off to the nearest diner or restaurant we could find. In those days there wasn’t a lot of fast food. Mostly sit-down diners.
One time we pulled into a small town somewhere I think in Nebraska and we all got out of the buses and we all started spreading out like locusts looking for a place to eat. I go to my bus partner, “So, what do you want to eat? There’s a tacos place over there.”
He looks at me with this puzzled look and says, “I never ate a taco before.”
“DUDE!!! You live in San Jose and you’ve never eaten a Taco???”
“Nope, never.”
That blew my mind!
“OK, there’s a Chinese restaurant another block down that way, we can get some Chinese food there.”
He goes, “I’ve never eaten Chinese food.”
“WHAT!!! You’ve never eaten Chinese food?” Well, there’s an Italian place beyond there.
“I never ate Italian food before.”
“DUDE!!! What do you eat?”
“I only eat chicken fried steak.”
So that was the day I realized it was my job to be Magellan and take this young boy on a journey to see what the heck he was missing.
Drum corps brought all of us kids together from various walks of life and made us work together as one entity – to be a world champion drum corps! In those early years we had members from just about every diversity in our drum corps so being of Mexican decent it was easy to break in this young dude on what he was missing. Especially TACOS!!!
In 2011, many years after teaching young buck what he was missing, we met him and his wife in Italy where we both journeyed through the boot of Italy and ate the most amazing Italian food along the Amalfi Coast.
Ahhhh… how we’ve grown since the days of traveling through the Midwest in those buses!
Best to all
-JJA