Recently , we watched “The Music Man” for our evening’s entertainment. I hadn’t seen the film since it came out in the early 60’s and as much as I thought I’d remembered the plot, it was all about the music. Surprising myself, I was still able to sing along.

My memory of the lyrics probably came from my early, meager years in New York City playing Broadway albums day and night in our tiny apartment. Back then I played “The Music Man” often, not just for the great music and beautiful voices, but because I grew up with a thing for marching bands.

Like all kids I loved a parade, but it was the bands that caught my early attention. I loved the deep thump, thump echoing in my chest as the drums passed by. I watched the band march in rank and file, working to stay in step, their eyes moving from their music to the line to the drum major and back. I knew as a little kid somehow I wanted to do that.

Years later I played in our high school band – for four years. I “made the band” because I discovered an instrument in the music room corner that hadn’t been played for a few years and no self-respecting music student of a real instrument had any interest in it. I was interested BECAUSE I couldn’t play a clarinet or trumpet or trombone. I did know that since I could read basic G-clef melody, I was the perfect person for the lonely instrument. That, and I was strong enough to carry the twenty-pound glockenspiel. Yup, the glockenspiel.

At the time it was worth trying anything because I NEEDED to be in the marching band. My friends were in the band. Julie played the flute and Maureen the clarinet. And I, a flunked-out piano student, could also wear one of their spiffy black and orange uniforms with the brass buttons if I were brave enough to risk making a fool of myself. I was, and I did.

The glockenspiel is really a xylophone just turned vertically. It’s played with one mallet because the other hand is holding the instrument upright . . . hopefully. I had to wear a leather carrying harness over the shoulders, with a hanging pouch holding the instrument’s foot – much like a flag is carried.

During a long parade the holding arm can get pretty shaky. When the marching band is not playing, a clarinet can be carried in one hand by your side. The sax on a neck chord can be allowed to hang with one hand steadying it. But a player of the bells, the glock’s other musical name, cannot remove the cold, heavy set from its carrying pouch. It’s also a bit of a showpiece of the band rather than just a music maker. Sometimes tassels are attached to its curved lyre handles at the top. The height at which it was carried, and the glinting of the shiny metal bars in the sun were all part of the band show – much like the twirling drumsticks and the majorette’s pompoms.

The glockenspiel is loud, playing the clear notes of the melody. There are no nuances or connections to other notes, no sliding into a correction. Every mistake is seriously audible. One miss-hit can sour the entire “Washington Post March.” But hard as I might try to hit the correct bar with the mallet, parade potholes and street stones caused D’s to become C’s. And slipping in a muddy football field could turn tuneful intentions into simply trying to remain upright. As much as I wanted to play perfectly, it was more important for me to stay off my butt on the slippery forty yard line.

I joined to be one of the gang and fortunately it didn’t take long to master the instrument. I marched with my archaic collection of tuned metal strips, bonging with my mallet, thrilled to be producing the rhythmic melodies of “Semper Fidelis” or the “Stars and Stipes Forever.”

But I spent a lot of autumns and early winters afternoons with round shoulders and freezing fingers. Marathon Memorial Day parades brought heat prostration in our heavy wool gabardines uniforms. Foot blisters, wind whipped hair, deep aches between the shoulder blades . . . all the whiny complaints sometimes made me wonder why we did it.

The why, however, was easy – much bigger and better than the short-comings. The friendships, the camaraderie on the band bus, the inside jokes – all in addition to making pretty nifty music with my new best friend, John Phillip Sousa.

The years of our happy band were enough to create for me a life-long love of big city parades and the Rose Bowl extravaganza of the enormous bands. I watch them all with delight. . . you know the ones, the bands with a couple hundred snappy be-plumed marchers. . . and no glockenspiels. There just aren’t many of the old bell lyres out there today.

In fact, I have never in my long lifetime met another glockenspiel player. Maybe it’s because admitting you played in a band is an automatic nerd tag. Or maybe no one else would ever admit possessing that little musical ability.

Me? I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.