In March of 1977, I was playing guitar in the Limestone Jazz Band and loving it! We were in the middle of a short tour of the local grade schools along with the Concert band doing shows to promote the band programs at Limestone and hopefully recruit new students for the following year.This was my second year in Jazz band and I was Senior. We had a lot of respect from the class and our Band Director, Mr Cunningham. Unfortunately, we probably caused Mr C too much worry during the previous two years. We were notorious for late arrivals and red eyes. But, he knew we could really PLAY!!!! In fact, I won a first place award at a Jazz competition that year. He was a patient man.
On day one of our two day tour, we had played two grade schools and were told to take one hour for lunch...find a McDonalds or something and be back in time for our third performance.
There were four or five of us in one guys truck. The Rhythm section traveled together!!! We were the ROCK STARS of the band lol. Or so we thought! The truck had a sliding window between the front cab and the bed in the back. The bed had a topper and two or three of us rode along with a full set of drums, cymbals and stands, my 8x10 Marshall cabinet, amp head, several guitars, bass amp and assorted percussion. We slid around with the gear as were were transported.
With time to kill before our next show, we thought it would be a good idea to find a country road and share an herbal cigarette. Within a few minutes, we were on an isolated country road that looked like it led back to a farm house.... but we were a half mile away from that.
We passed the smoke between us through the glass. All of a sudden, I noticed a pickup truck pulling up right behind us. our exit was trapped an we had to think fast! The farmer got out and poked his head in through the window. He could see we had a ton of musical stuff with us. "What are you boys doing on my property?" He asked. There was silence and it looked like he was beginning to get anxious for an answer. Without wasting any more time, I devised a scenario in my brain which seemed plausible. "Well, sir, as you can see, we are musicians and we noticed that one of our cymbal stands must have fallen out of our truck and we stopped to pick it up and get back to our performance", I said wide eyed! "Huh....is that right? well I'm gonna ask ya again...what the HELL ARE YOU DOING ON MY PROPERTY"?
Ok, maybe my story had a few holes in it it, but I didn’t have a lot of time to think of anything better.
All of a sudden, Leon, decided that he was gonna take matters into his own hands since my story was falling flat... and PUNCHED the accelerator to the floor!!!!!! The three of us found ourselves pinned against the back window of the topper along with a truck bed full of guitars, amps and drums. We took off like a bat out of hell and were putting distance between us and the farmer!!!!! The only problem was.... we were heading directly towards the farmers house with no way out!!!! We were heading for a TRAP!!!!
The farmer knew we had no place to run so he slowly followed us to his circular drive way. From the inside of the back of the truck, we could see we had no where to run! The big farm house just got closer and closer!!! Once we pulled up in front of his porch, the farmer glided to a halt behind us and eased his way up to the side of our truck.
" I'll ask ya again, What the hell are you doing on my land"? And with that, Leon went berserk......he jammed the gear shift into drive and everything went into SLOW MOTION!!!! The equipment in the back shifted from one side to the other with the three of us tumbling like bags of potatoes along with the guitars and drums!!!!!!
Leon pulled a U TURN in the farmers front yard and mud and sod flew ten or twenty feet in the air and even caught the farmer in the face as we flew past him..... our truck hitting warp speed down the two lane dirt road and on to the blacktop!!!! We didn't slow down until we hit Mr Quick on Adams Street.
Laughing hysterically, we bought our food and made it back to the tour just in time. Later that night, I smiled in my Orange Room as I fell asleep. This one was one for the history books.
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Good read
Lol