You don't have to be great to be part of something great

Very few people have the chance at some point in their lives to be part of something truly wonderful.

Most people who play on sports teams never win championships, whether at the state, national or world level. Even among the athletes who qualify for the Olympics, far more fail to win medals than those who do.

I think I could argue, though, that just qualifying for the Olympics is to be part of something wonderful. Even if you're the last one out of the pool in a swimming event, you're still recognized as one of the best in the world at what you do.

Sometimes, though, you can be part of something wonderful without being all that wonderful yourself. Every time I hear Leonard Bernstein's "Overture" from Candide, it reminds me of that time in my life.

When I was in school, I played a musical instrument. I have to say that loosely, because my playing an instrument was about as close to being a wonderful musician as my playing baseball was to my being Babe Ruth.

Trumpet embouchure (not me)

I played cornet for five years, and through the suggestion of a wonderful band director and teacher, switched to tuba for my last three years at W.T. Woodson High School. My teacher, E.C. Buskirk, was maybe the best band director I ever met. He told me I was never going to be any good as a cornet player due to problems with my embouchure, but my problems would lessen on an instrument with a larger mouthpiece.

We had three bands in high school, and I had been in the worst one in ninth grade. Mr. Buskirk promised me that if I switched to tuba and worked hard at it, he would put me in the second band (as a beginner) and then move me to the top band for my last two years of high school.

That was how it happened, and that was how I got to be part of the best high school band in the state of Virginia for two years.

That's not an exaggeration. We had so many wonderful musicians, like trumpet player Paul Gasparides, flutist Nancy Redfearn, clarinetists Ibrook Tower and his brother Joff and first chair tuba player Pete Carlson, to name a few in my mind after nearly 50 years. Each of them was an all-state musician. I wasn't all-anything, but it was a wonderful time.

We played some amazing music too, and the one that has stayed with me since 1967 more than anything else is the Bernstein piece.



It was so difficult, particularly the last minute or so, for a kid who had barely reached the point on the tuba where he wasn't faking it.

I used to have a record album -- actually a double album -- of the best stuff we played in my senior year, but a well-meaning friend lost it.

He didn't actually lose it. He knew where it was. He took my album, and without my knowing about it, gave it to a friend of his to make a CD of it. The friend took it to work, and while it was there, his employer went bankrupt, the business was padlocked and nothing could be removed.

Anyway, that was my brush with greatness. I didn't own my tuba, so I stopped playing at all after high school, and sad to say, I would have to have a refresher course -- at least a brush-up -- even to be able to read music again.

But there is a happy ending. When my son Virgile was in fifth grade, he started playing the saxophone. He not only became the best at his school, he was in the top band all four years of high school and was the drum major of the marching band as a senior.

And one more thing. He was named to the all-state band as a senior -- in the biggest state of all.

Pretty great, huh?