Gratitude is always in Fashion

And what a great "thing" gratitude is!

The Pride Parade of June 7, 2025 was a high point of my career as a fifer. I started when I was 11 with the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps - but this? This was different. We were interacting with our audience all along the 1.8 mile parade route from T and 14th Street NW down to the National Archives where our nation’s founding documents are on display. These things have always been very close to my heart since I grew up in Williamsburg, VA and now live in Washington DC, just 7 blocks from our step-off point.

When I marched with the Corps between 1974-1981 in Williamsburg and since I have returned to march with the Alumni beginning with the Williamsburg Community Christmas Parade in 2004, we did not interact with our audience. The “Pride of America” Fife, Drum, and Bugle Corps though? We interacted. We “acted up!” - and it was a beautiful experience I look forward to experiencing again as soon as the opportunity presents itself. I was playing my colorful acrylic fifes, primarily one purchased at the Deep River Ancient Muster of 2011 when I first performed at that Connecticut muster to mark the 50th anniversary of the Colonial Williamsburg F&D’s first appearance there.

I’ve made this post about gratitude. I’m grateful for all the experiences and all of my wide range of fellow Fife, Drum, and Bugle cohort. Music has the power to heal.

Martial music as we do it also has the power to communicate when words would be lost in the noise. Our tunes are signals to those who have ears to hear them. They speak of triumphs past but they also convey simple ideas like - time to get up, time to eat, time to work, and time to stop hanging out in the pubs and get back to the barracks. They regulate the soldier’s work day. They help them move from place to place at a steady 96 beats to the minute and that cadence can be increased if necessary to move the troops more quickly. We, the musicians, also provide music for entertainments, dances, and general revelry. We lift spirits.

So, I’m grateful to be a part of that community and I’ve worked hard to ensure that the signal gets amplified over the noise of fear and hatred that seem to pervade our national dialogue lately. Instead, love, kindness, and a mutual respect and appreciation of our difference was on full display on June 7, 2025.

Onward!

July 5, 2008 - the first day of the second half-century of the Colonial Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps - waiting to step off to “Drum Intro - York March” behind Drum Major A. John C. Moon (1930-2022)