Two Roads Diverged in a Wood and I....

I took the one less traveled-by. And that has made all the difference.

I didn't get the chance to really shine as a performer. I tried. I took up public local performances. I sang at talent shows. I came in second once at a talent contest at Bevill State while representing my highschool.
I had talent... but I lacked focus. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I didn't have a lot of support for the things I loved... So I just dabbled in this and that until the chances went by.

But the performer in me thrived onward through highschool. I picked up beginning band class in 7th grade and started on Drums. Drums ... was a bad choice. I was bored to death by the end of the year and for summer break, my band director, Mr. Silvie, gave me new instrument to play.

"This is a baritone" he told me. This was a wonderful instrument that created the foundation of the sound the band made. This instrument was vital to the band. I was going to play it because no one else was playing it and he needed a marcher next year that could play it. I was so happy. I was going to be performing a valuable instrument! I took the basics book he gave me and the horn he loaned me from the school and went home and played all summer. I really did practice a good deal too. I loved playing the horn. The sound of it was awesome to me. So deep and rich.

A few months later, I received a letter from the school saying I was invited to band camp... by Mr. Pounders. Silvie had left the school and we had a new band director.

So I went in for my very first week at band camp, a just-before-8th grader and joined the ranks of the low brass section. My senior low-brass captain was a tall, skinny boy with blond hair and a lot of acne. I can't remember his name off hand. I hated him, so it's just as well I don't recall him so vividly. He was a total jerk to me. In retrospect, jealous of my talent as it emerged. Regardless... He took one look at my .... instrument... and said I had a concert baritone and needed a marching baritone. So he talked to Mr. Pounders briefly then took my horn and gave me a new one. This one was small and all curly, but it worked the same way and I found it even felt a little easier to fill it up with air. I practiced a couple of scales and it was fine. I took my place in band camp and kept going.

A week later, we'd finished band camp. I was doing great with my new horn and I had learned all my drills for the show perfectly. I knew my music by heart. I was the only one new to the band that could handle sight-reading already.

That year went great. I loved Mr. Pounders. He took me to my very first honor band which occurred in New Hope, Mississippi. I even placed 3rd chair there, young as I was.

The following year would show a few interesting and amusing points. I passed everyone in my instrument to sit first chair. I was just that devoted to my instrument. Oh how I loved my horn. I could sit and play it for hours. Because it gave me expression. I could sing through it... and it was perfect.

I went to honor bands, Solo and Ensemble competitions, you name it. Any chance to play my horn extra was a welcome thing to me. I spent extra time in the band hall whenever I could. And Mr. Pounders grew to be a favorite teacher. He really helped those who helped themselves. If you were really shining, he didn't let tradition hold you back. A 7th grader sat first chair in Clarinet my second year. Why? The seniors were being lazy and she out-did them in the chair challenge. They were so furious... but Mr. Pounders felt that a proper meritocracy shouldn't involve your parents' money or support of the band. I liked that man. He was kickass.

What was really funny was when we went on a long car-trip to a farther-off honor band. New Hope's honor band, the second time I went... at the end of my second year in band. I'd played solos in the marching show that year, shined above my peers and really stood out. Mr. Pounders liked me. He took me and three other students to this honor band in his caddy. On the way back, an amusing conversation happened (amid this one girl... Stephanie... trying repeatedly to get me to "accidentally" kiss her. It was really awkward honestly because I had to room with her and she kept trying to kiss me. I didn't like her.) in the car. Mr. Pounders started talking about how I'd done with my horn and I commented that the first week of band camp ever was really the rough part because I'd never played that horn before that week. And he laughed it off and said that of course I had, I'd played it the summer before.

I finally got to tell him then that it turned out... I'd never played a baritone before my first band camp week.

Mr. Silvie had tried to pull a sly on me and had given me a tuba.

While a tuba is... *basically* similar to a baritone... it is kinda like saying a flute is basically similar to a clarinet. It works differently. It plays differently. It's a different instrument.

I remember Mr. Pounders, Stephanie and Adam (in the car) looking back at me suddenly and staring like "whaaat?". Mr. Pounders then asked me how I'd picked up baritone and played through my first band camp week with him without him knowing I'd never touched a baritone before. I shrugged it off and suggested I just had a knack for the horn and it came easy to me. He was stunned. He couldn't believe I'd played a week on that horn having never touched it before and he couldn't tell I hadn't.

It was amusing. Because as it turned out... Mr. Silvie hadn't been nice enough to leave my name marked with the instrument he'd actually given me on the list he gave onward to Mr. Pounders. So it marked me: Baritone player instead of Tuba player.

Ultimately... this was the best for me tho. The tuba... was not my horn. I found the baritone easy to play after struggling with the tuba all summer (which I'd just taken it that the concert horn was harder to play than the marching horn. When I would later get a concert baritone... I found it wasn't so different!!!).

Ah. And all of that mattered to me so much. I wanted the band to be the best it could be. Because it was my stage. It was the place I could perform. And if the band sucked, I sucked. So I tried so hard to get others to take things seriously. I really was uptight at that point... but it was because something mattered to me so very much and I had no other way to handle it. If they all screwed off, I had no outlet anymore.

Important at this point is to mention Carl.

I was 13 when I picked up band for the first time. I had other events going on that year that are of note.
My family was Christian, like most Southern families. But ... my dad was Mormon and my mother had been raised in the Church of Christ. (YIKES! Right?)

My dad ended up giving and going with my mom and her family to East Walker Church of Christ in Sumiton.
I liked the place well enough as a child for the most part... except for the one guy that tormented me endlessly there, but this memory isn't about him. No need to reclaim memories of him... I remember him quite well.

I had been churching there, however, since age 7 when we first went there. I liked it sometimes, hated it sometimes... probably like any kid.

When I was 13, however, Church suddenly became the place to be for me.
Why?

Carl.

Harting I think. It's hard to recall. We never used his last name. We just all knew him as Carl.
That year, our minister, B. Bennet, left the "minister's house" that sat by the church and moved into his own nice big place somewhere else. So the little house that the church paid to maintain so we could have a minister living there was empty. We got ... for the first time *I* could recall... a real Youth Minister.

And he sucked. I don't even remember his name. But he was a tall, heavy guy and he had no way with kids. None of us liked him. He left... within three or so months.

Then... we got Carl.

Carl was awesome. He was in his twenties... mid to late if I recall. He had been a marine briefly and left due to vision declining I think. His wife ... Sarah, and he had a toddler. A son... I can't remember his name. I just remember everyone calling him "Carl Jr." and I don't think that was his name.

Carl was the shit. He was energetic, active and intelligent. He taught us Bible lessons that I still have a use for today, 13 years later and no longer a Christian. (Like how to actually figure the meaning of an ancient text by considering not only the words exactly as given, but the audience as intended, the cultural meaning of phrases, and the other translations and how they've changed things. That's right. Carl taught me first how to study ancient texts correctly.)

He got involved with the youth of the church, and he didn't just teach us our youth classes. He invited us over for dinner, devotionals, weekend "lock-in"s which became a "as-many-times-a-month-as-we-can-all-get-away-with-it" thing... you name it. If we had a chance to get to Carl's place... we did.

Why?

Carl was one of us. He was an adult... but still on our level. The whole teen group loved him.
He became our leader. And we followed him everywhere. If he wanted to show us martial arts (which he did), we'd all happily take that up and enjoy the practice with him. Except when he did his signature "Rain of Death" move on us and pummeled us endlessly with soft-pulled blows while we fell onto the couch and cried for mercy. It was good natured fun. He was an awesome guy. I will never forget him.

And how this relates back to my performing heart?

Carl introduced us to Roleplay.

One day, at a church soft-ball game and cookout... I saw Carl sitting with M(the guy I mentioned earlier who always tormented me), and the Twins (B and L... let's just stick with that. I know their names tho.). I went over to see what they were doing and they all had strange forms they were writing on.

I asked what it was and Carl sat down with me aside and showed me. It was a character sheet. The first I'd ever seen. He explained the different boxes held different values that tell you how strong your character is in different ways. He explained that they were going to play a roleplaying game starting that night at Carl's house and they were getting ready. I asked to play and he agreed it would be fine, just show up early. So I talked my parents into letting me do what *they* were doing, and just stayed the night with Carl and Sarah. I think it was going to be Sunday the next morning anyway and since it was the youth minister, it was okay!

I remember sitting down to make my first character, some hours later, bursting with excitement at Carl's house. I sat alone with him (as he made characters one at a time with each of us since none of us knew how to make one on our own and it was basically him making the character for us while we talked about what we wanted to do with them). He had such cool hand-writing. I remember liking his hand-writing so much, I tried to take up his style. The way he wrote 2's and 0's particularly enthralled me.

I may have had a crush on Carl. Maybe.

I made up my first character in the Rifts rpg system... and she was a psionic character who I had no personality for save my own plus some quirks. When we sat down to play for the first time, Carl looked at me and asked what my character's name was.

Crap. I hadn't thought of that.
So I cast about for a name. And in my head... I thought... oh so clever... they won't realize I'm stealing this name from somewhere else... I said "Deanna". And Carl wrote it down for me. Then looked up "Last name?"
I shrugged. "Troy".

He and M and everyone else in the room "Ooooh'd" and someone said "Like Star Trek". I blushed furiously "I ... couldn't think of anything else" and there was laughter, then Carl shushed them and said "It's fine. Soo Deanna... what kind of place do you live in to start?" And he just went ahead with it and made me feel so much better about having used a popular media name. (Of course, I learned that day that I wasn't as alone as a Trekker...)

Carl's games became the highlight of my life along with band. In one sense, I could perform.. actually get up in front of a crowd and shine. In another sense, I could sit with a group of friends and imagine and dream... and both parts fulfilled the light inside me that wanted to come out.

For roughly two years, my favorite activities were band and roleplaying.

Then one day... I came to the church and Carl was packing up his van. He and Sarah and little Carl Jr or whatever his name was... were leaving.

Apparently... some of our parents had grown ... *concerned* (a word that in Christianity means: They're about to take something vital from your life due to fear of evil)... that we were spending too much time with Carl and obviously this meant not that he was a great youth minister that kept us out of trouble, built bonds of friendship and fellowship and had us wanting to spend time doing harmless, emotionally uplifting activities in our spare time... But that he was teaching us an evil game and had us fighting (martial arts were suddenly just "fighting") and doing other "unnamed inappropriate things" at church and in the minster's house. Carl had been asked to leave.

I ... cried. I cried hard. I remember giving Carl a hug and crying a lot. I didn't want him to go. It was awful.

Truly, my grandfather had died when I was 13. (Another story. Not here.) and Carl had arrived in our lives just later that same year. Now ... I was losing Carl.
And a year later... I would lose Mr. Pounders too.
As all those gripey teens whose parents *paid* for all the band stuff... got him kicked out on ridiculous claims.
(Our principle, Joe Potts, came to the band hall and said  "Everybody that wants Mr. Pounders to stay go over to this side of the room, and everybody that wants him to leave, go to this side of the room." 8 whole people went to the side that meant "leaving" and the 120 or so left went to the other side. Mr. Potts still fired him. )

So then I lost the best band director I had ever had or would ever have as well. And he was replaced by a 24 year old asshole who had just got out of college, thought he was the shit, and couldn't even play half the instruments he claimed to be the best at.


So ... at Age 13, I lost the only member of my family I truly believed loved me. (My Grandfather)
At Age 14, I lost the youth minister who gave me faith in myself and a tool to being whole...
And at Age 15... I lost the last teacher who would ever nourish my creativity and give me a chance to really be what I could be.

At Age 15, I then also met my mate for life.

At least, as such, the cycle was broken.
But I did lose in those few years, in quick succession, three very important people who had played very important roles in my life... And I would never see any of them again in the flesh... to this day.


I'm done for today... I miss people... so much right now.

I wonder if I could find Carl or Mr. Pounders if I tried.

I don't know what I'd do if I could. Except say "thank you".

Arsh