This week, we'll be paying some editorial attention to drum corps duties -- bus loading, field lining and the like.
By Stephanie Campbell
First of all, I want to thank Emily Pawlak in the DCI front office for thinking of me and arranging for me to write this. I don't often think about drum corps anymore and it is a shame because it was such a large part of my life for five years. It is an honor to be remembered, even if it is for lining the field.
There isn't anything private about drum corps. I think that the reason I was drawn to field lining was that the field liners were allowed to get up earlier than the rest of the corps. We were able to shower and eat before the rest of the corps. My first year as a field liner, I was the only volunteer. No one else wanted to do it -- they had to be appointed. I was the only female field liner and therefore I got the locker room all to myself, which didn't happen a whole lot for the rest of the corps. That half hour to myself every day was priceless.
Some of the memories I have of field lining:
-There was at least some paint on everything that I owned.
-Since we lined a field at least once every couple of days, the paint never wore off of our hands.
-I remember some staff member being so mad at his section that he told them they didn't deserve to practice with the rest of the corps. We got to line a second field that day.
-One of my fellow crewmembers wrote something not so nice about the guard on the guard field one day. That didn't go over well.
-I was amazed the day that I found out that the Madison staff lined their field for them.
-We were in New Jersey and the field we were to use had wasps the size of birds living in it (it would be my guess that Wasps do not like the smell of paint).
-Sometimes we got to line a baseball field. Paint doesn't stick to loose dirt.
-More than once, someone from the school where we were staying lined the field for us and it was wrong. That was just a nightmare.
- Once in a while, we lined a field and then the school custodian would mow it off.
-Spraypainting your show shoes does not take as long as cleaning and polishing them (I never did this).
-The Colt process of getting the lines on a field exactly perpendicular was called triangulation and everyone I knew in five years of field lining did it a little different.
Many of my most memorable moments from drum corps involve field lining and my field lining crew. Most members of the corps didn't envy us, but they didn't know what they were missing. Field lining was a privilege. Stephanie (Rees) Campbell, Colts 1991-1995
-Since we lined a field at least once every couple of days, the paint never wore off of our hands.
-I remember some staff member being so mad at his section that he told them they didn't deserve to practice with the rest of the corps. We got to line a second field that day.
-One of my fellow crewmembers wrote something not so nice about the guard on the guard field one day. That didn't go over well.
-I was amazed the day that I found out that the Madison staff lined their field for them.
-We were in New Jersey and the field we were to use had wasps the size of birds living in it (it would be my guess that Wasps do not like the smell of paint).
-Sometimes we got to line a baseball field. Paint doesn't stick to loose dirt.
-More than once, someone from the school where we were staying lined the field for us and it was wrong. That was just a nightmare.
- Once in a while, we lined a field and then the school custodian would mow it off.
-Spraypainting your show shoes does not take as long as cleaning and polishing them (I never did this).
-The Colt process of getting the lines on a field exactly perpendicular was called triangulation and everyone I knew in five years of field lining did it a little different.
Many of my most memorable moments from drum corps involve field lining and my field lining crew. Most members of the corps didn't envy us, but they didn't know what they were missing. Field lining was a privilege. Stephanie (Rees) Campbell, Colts 1991-1995