Gary Moore and his double-tenor drums (right) marches with the Cavaliers in Garfield, New Jersey, in July of 1972. As Jim Riordan told Gary, “This picture of you marching explains so much about you.” Wroblewski Family
Buddy died eleven months before the sixties began, but he helped lay the foundation upon which the music of the 1960s was built. I was more deeply impacted by the events of my generation than I had realized or wanted to admit. Tim Duggan’s impromptu Rock music history lessons and Jim Riordan’s strong opinions on the 1960s were forcing to the surface whatever was buried deep inside me for decades. My search for Buddy Holly was clarifying things I had buried or purposefully blurred. I didn’t know until Buddy came into my life that all these emotions and thoughts had been lurking below.
In 1970, more than a decade after the fateful crash in an Iowa farm field, the Kankakee Blackhawks Drum & Bugle Corps lined up in the staging area in preparation for a grand entry onto State Street to take part in the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) State Convention Parade in Chicago. In 1970, the organization was enjoying its peak participation and membership because of the World War II generation, the men and women I believe saved the free world as we know it today.
Back then I was a young teenager getting ready to march in the VFW parade. I remember looking pretty sharp in my all-black military-style uniform, complete with a green and white sash across my shoulder and a black shako military hat with a tall white plume adorning my head. I carried a green marching snare drum with a silver stripe down the middle. I loved Drum and Bugle Corps and had deep respect for the men and women who belonged to the VFW and a similar organization called the American Legion. As I said earlier, these people had saved the free world as we know it . . . right?
Before we headed into the parade, a decked-out VFW official accompanied by a Chicago Police officer approached our drum major, 17-year-old Teri Steinbach, and our adult corps director Earl Moran. The policeman looked especially grim, and a few minutes later I learned why. Drum Major Teri was a good friend. I could tell by her facial expressions and body movements that something was wrong. At the time I could only hear part of the conversation, but the way she looked at me when the police officer was speaking to her struck a nerve. As Drum Major, Teri was the highest ranking officer among the members of the Corps. I broke ranks and approached the assembled group to find out what was going on. Under any other circumstances Teri would have demanded I get back in line. But not on this day.
Teri’s jaw tightened and her dark brown eyes narrowed as she quietly shared with me what she had just been told. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and a splinter group called The Weather Underground were threatening to attack the flag bearers and tear down the American flags carried by the corps. Our flag was in the hands of sixteen-year-old Paula Burke, whose job it was to proudly carry Old Glory in front of the marching corps on a seven-foot steel pike with a shiny bronze eagle on top. Paula, whose red hair was pulled up and pinned under her shako, was accompanied by a young girl perhaps ten years old carrying a ceremonial saber. I remember being impressed by Teri’s composure and presence of mind. I think this was the first time in our young lives that we were faced with a real-world situation that could result in bodily harm—or worse.
Teri and I watched Earl as the police officer approached Paula and told her of the threat. Paula began to cry. Teri, along with Dan Cote, Nick Eldred, Greg Kunde, Lonnie Netzel, my older brother Dave, and I—the oldest members of the corps—rushed to her side. We assured her that we would not let anyone touch her or our flag. Paula knew the assurances of a few teenage boys armed with drums and bugles would be of little help. At no point in my life did I feel more distant from the older members of my generation and all I thought they represented. At that moment, I hated them, their threat, their long hair . . . and their music.
Gary Moore and his double-tenor drums (right) marches with the Cavaliers in Garfield, New Jersey, in July of 1972. As Jim Riordan told Gary, “This picture of you marching explains so much about you.” Wroblewski Family
Performing with the Cavaliers (below) in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois, in May of 1972. Author
Everyone walked back to their respective places and a few minutes later marched onto Wacker Drive before turning south onto State Street. As we did so, thousands of veterans lining both sides of the street erupted with applause. Normally I would have been excited beyond words. This time I barely noticed. My eyes were focused on Paula marching ahead of me. The flagpole was shaking in her hands and her shoulders were heaving up and down. I remember wondering if anyone in the audience realized that she was crying.
I scanned the crowd for any danger, but all I saw was a solid wave of veterans with their families, most standing at attention saluting the flag Paula carried as we passed, while some of the very old vets remained seated but were saluting nonetheless. In my young mind I compared what I saw in these men—appreciation, respect, and love of country—against the students who looked forward to disrupting our event and maybe even harming us. To the relief of everyone in the know, the parade went off without a problem.
After we finished marching we loaded into our busses and headed for home. I was stowing my gear in the overhead compartment when someone turned on WLS AM radio and “Sergeant Pepper” erupted throughout the bus. I felt the blood rush to my face as I turned and screamed, “Shut that crap off!” The music stopped immediately. Everyone looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. Yelling like that was way out of character for me. The bus ride home was eerily silent.
Over the years I have lost contact with most of the members of that small Drum & Bugle Corps because I left it to join The Cavaliers, headquartered at Logan Square in Chicago. I had not thought about those events of the summer of 1970 for decades. But I bet Paula remembers.
* * *
Tim Duggan had been trying his best to bring me up to Rock & Roll speed. He gave me several CDs he felt were important that I listen to and understand and he downloaded more than 100 songs onto my laptop when I was out of the office. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, and a host of other Rock groups now graced my iTunes library.
For some strange and unexpected reason, talking with Tim and Jim and listening to the music of the 1960s brings back memories of Paula crying and the unfulfilled vision of a group of young political radicals who plotted to attack a helpless teenager because she carried an American flag.
Some of this 1960s-era music triggered long-forgotten memories and feelings of sadness, anger, and fear. Is this why I largely ignored the music of that time? The music was indeed a display of amazing talent, extreme creativity, and in a few cases outright genius. But in the recesses of my mind it also represented protest, anger, rebellion, and violence against what I was raised to believe was good, wholesome, and important. At sixteen I thought we were fighting in Vietnam so that others could be free. Was I wrong? Were they? Or was it like most issues in life: we find truth only when we are open to hear it, and it usually resides not on either end of the spectrum but somewhere in the middle.
Now I got it. The realization is taking firmer form. I put Rock & Roll out of my head for most of my life because I have been (unfairly and inaccurately) tying this together with the protests and violence of the sixties and early seventies.
I recall with great sadness the way our soldiers were treated at home only because they answered the call of their nation and wore the uniform of the United States military. I remember clearly (and with complete disdain), the raves of the SDS and the violence of the Weather Underground. To this day I still do not understand why their leaders were not convicted and locked away or why they are still, in some circles, hailed as heroes. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn have been in the national news lately because of the campaign and election of Barack Obama. Every time I see them on the air I wonder, “How did they escape a jail sentence after plotting to set off bombs?”
Jim/Levi Riordan romanticizes the sixties as a time of enlightenment and an important turning point in our culture. He is convinced the era produced great accomplishments, but also represents opportunities lost. I see it as a very sad time filled with anger, misunderstanding, and the clash of what Tom Brokaw labeled “The Greatest Generation” against their children of the “Baby Boom Generation” who, for reasons their parents did not fully understand, were rebelling against them. Even today, neither group seems to have much comprehension of what drives the other. I gravitate to the opposite end of the spectrum from where Jim sits, sympathizing with our aging veterans’ lack of understanding of why their kids turned such rage against them.
All of this, of course, was merely back story to the questions I was seeking to answer: “What would Buddy have thought about the direction of the culture that his musical lineage partly represents?”
“What would Buddy have been like had the chartered plane arrived at its destination and Buddy raved on through the sixties and beyond?”
“Would Buddy’s influence have changed the direction of that momentous decade, or would the culture have pulled Buddy along in a more radical direction?”
“Was the momentum toward conflict so strong that no one person or his music could have stopped it?”
Much of this was coming into focus forty years after the parade in Chicago and the threats from the Weather Underground while I sat listening to The Who sing “My Generation.” This music is amazing! And I missed it all even though it was on radio stations and splashed across magazines and television. I grew up in the middle of it and barely noticed. I missed a decade or more of music because I attached the actions of a few to the music permeating the masses—and then shut it out.
Shame on me for allowing the actions of a few angry domestic terrorists to chase me away from the music of my youth. More importantly . . . shame on them . . . for all of it.