So Pooh commented that she remembered the fake leopard skin coat and that kind of got me going down memory lane a bit. I forgot to say in yesterday’s blahg that I also wore mini-skirts many of those 0-skunk-30 minus 28 tundra walking days.

I *did* worry about my hair in those days. I envied the gals who had long straight blonde hair down to their butts. One of my daughters actually has hair that will do that kind of thing if she wants it to, although she goes for a more elegant look these days. I think she inherited that more from her dad than from me. Because, me, not so much. My hair gets long and kind of straggles around like in the photoooo and even now if I don’t have a place to stash an emergency brush, I kind of look like that first-seat gal in the photoooo, except older and grayer. Sigh… We won’t even talk about the Sun-In “hair-lightener” product, which is apparently still around…

The young woman angsty teenager in the photoooo? That photo was taken at the Interlochen bandshell in the summer of 1971 and sent to me (or my parents, I can’t remember) by whoever was hired back in 1971 to take photos of all of the Michigan All-State Interlochen symphonic band campers so people like me would have a memento of us playing our instruments back in the Jurassic Age.

I don’t remember this exact day but it looks like it was chilly (the bandshell is outside) and I think I have a windbreaker on over my uniform of navy skirt and white light blue blouse and I fergit what else. Oh yeah, yellow socks. Yes, I am first chair here. A kid from the yooperland who only had one year of serious flute lessons and that was in 8th grade. Second chair gal was really nice and I liked her but I can’t remember her name. Cindy (or something) from Grosse Point (or someplace). Third chair? That’s J. He originally won first chair. I beat him out on both chair challenges and maintained first chair until the end. We were both Yoopers (he was from Escanaba or Menominee, I can’t quite remember). We got to be friendly and when I went down to The Planet Ann Arbor to Band Day at the UM football game the next fall, he was there for band day and I talked to him. (I was there with my family, the Sault Ste. Siberian band program didn’t or couldn’t support a trip to Ann Arbor at that point, or maybe never). Anyway J went on to a flute career and is on the flootloop group nowadays. I do something different. (Something where, in the middle of a quiet afternoon, it isn’t uncommon for someone to randomly shout out things like, “Defect! Defect! Defect! Doo doo doo doo doo doo”.)

If you are a flute player, you will see that we are all putting our fingers on the same keys. If I were on my toes, I’d be able to tell you what note we’re playing. But I can’t and now that’s driving me nuts…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.