This is a bit longer than usual, so bear with me. But it’s Valentine’s Day – why not tell the whole story…

The School District of Lancaster city was different than the county schools.  The county districts had grades 6-8 at the middle school and grades 9-12 at the high school.  My Lancaster city school district had junior high school for grades 7-9 and high schools for grades 10-12.

Does that matter?

In this case it does matter because our Lancaster City school music department was concerned that us junior high kids were missing a year of marching band experience compared to the county kids because we had 1 year less of high school than they did.

Does that really matter?

It must have to the music department because they attempted to fix the problem by creating a new, cross-district  group called Ninth Grade Marching Band.  This new group would pool interested 9th graders from all 4 city junior high schools and form them into a marching band that would play local parades and a few performances with the McCaskey High School marching band.

The key is that this new group would be for interested students.  It was not mandatory. 

And I was not interested.

I’m not sure why I wasn’t interested, I loved playing the trumpet and doing band stuff at my junior high, but for whatever reason I just wasn’t into the new 9th grade marching band thing.

So, a few days before the sign-up deadline, I told my Mom that I wasn’t going to do it.  I didn’t think she’d be happy about it, but I also didn’t think she would care all that much.

“You’re not doing it?”, she said.

“Nope.”

“Ok- how come?”

“I don’t know. It just seems lame.”

“Ok, just tell Mark before the deadline.”

“Can’t you tell him for me?”

“No- it’s your business, you should tell him yourself.”

That complicated things a lot!  Mark was Mark Watson; Mr. Watson, the guy in charge of the new 9th grade band; the guy I took trumpet lessons from over the summer; the awesome sax player I heard practicing from his home when I was out in my yard; the neighbor who lived 2 houses down from us on Union Street.

Tell him myself?  

He wouldn’t like it.  I’m sure he would ask me why I wasn’t going to play.  And what was I going to say?  Nothing legitimate.

So I joined the first ever School District of Lancaster Ninth Grade Marching Band in the summer of 1983.

A few weeks later I got on the bus and went from Wheatland Junior High in west Lancaster, to Lincoln Jr. High on the east side.  It was time for band practice.  At some point we went out into the school parking lot and lined up in some sort of parade formation.  As a trumpet player, I was in one of the rows toward the front, but the saxes were in front of us.

About half of the sax players were girls.  What do guys typically do when a girl stands in front of them?  They look!

So I took a look at the back of the sax section and noticed one that had cool-looking floral shorts and a cute hair style.  I thought she had a good vibe.  

“I’d like to marry somebody like that”, I thought.

Fat chance though because I was super shy and had no plans to ever talk to a girl in my life.  I was a good window shopper but not confident enough to handle the merchandise. Plus this girl seemed to have her shit together, and I didn’t see myself as being at that level.

I did keep my eye on her though, every time we were in parade formation and whenever I could get a glimpse of her in the band room.  She was cute!  Also a flute player; she just played sax for marching band.

Well, that was summer and early fall.  By October, I straight up had a thing for the sax player, who (according to a mutual friend) was named Tammy.  But we went to different schools across town, and there were plenty of interesting girls at my own school.  Plus, for some reason, I was feeling a bit more confident and even was thinking about trying to interact with some of these “home school girls”.

So, Tammy was just someone nice to watch and look at while at 9th Grade Marching Band practices.  Until, at some point in October, my sax-playing friend and fellow band member, Rich, told me some news.

“Hey- you know that Tammy girl from Lincoln?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this weekend when we’re at that band thing, I’m gonna ask her to go out with me.”

“Really? Cool!” I said, trying to sound believable.

Inside my head though, it wasn’t cool at all.  Despite my previously mentioned thoughts on girls at my own school, I suddenly realized that this Tammy thing was much bigger to me than I thought.  I didn’t want other people dating her!  Did that mean that I thought I was supposed to date her?

But now I may have to wait in line.  What if my turn never comes up!?

When Saturday came, all us band kids were in our funky-looking uniforms, performing in the Millersville University Homecoming Parade- at least I think that’s what the event was.  At any rate, after the parade, the whole band was going to eat lunch at one of the college cafeterias.  This is when Rich was going to make his move.

Do you know how weird it feels to root against one of your best friends?  I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t help it either.

As we were all waiting in line outside the cafeteria, two groups had my full attention. One was me, Rich, and our friends; helping Rich figure out how he was going to strike up a conversation with Tammy and ask her out.  The other group was Tammy and her friends. I’m not sure how much distance was between us, but I’m guessing about 30 yards.

Rich kept looking back at Tammy’s group.  So did I.

Tammy kept looking up at our group.

She probably knew something was up.

I was not a known telepath at that time, but something told me that I could do it- or at least that I should try it.

I looked straight at Tammy’s face and into her eyes (as best I could from that distance) and tried to send her a message using my wishful telepathy skills and some most-likely-weird-looking eye movements.

“Rich is going to ask you out.  But don’t go.”

I tried this delivery several times. Tammy seemed to be looking directly at me every time, and for some reason, I thought she was getting the message!

I also thought she was speaking back to me, saying “Ok- thanks!” (I found out later that she had no idea what I was trying to do, she just liked the eye contact.)

I don’t remember much of what happened next, but I do remember getting back on the bus and everybody asking Rich what happened.  Rich did talk to Tammy and ask her out, but she said she already had a boyfriend.

My thoughts went everywhere.

Relief! Wait- she has a boyfriend?  That sucks. Hold on- she has no boyfriend- she just didn’t want to go out with Rich. That’s very polite of her. But why lie? Well, if she does have a boyfriend, maybe she’ll ditch him once I get to know her...

But with that close call behind me, I decided to definitely introduce myself to Tammy at the next band rehearsal.

But of course I didn’t.  Instead, I did nothing.

Fortunately for me, Tammy did not share my inaction issues. She did some detective work and looked my family up in the phone book. Then, a few weeks later, she called me! 

I don’t remember much of what we talked about except I learned that Tammy was pretty smart and did very well at school.  I explained that I was sick of school and decided not to give a shit about my last year of junior high, which resulted in a truly horrendous report card including 3 F’s, a D, and a C.   I don’t remember the words she used, but the basic message was: I don’t have time for dumbasses.  

And just like that, my experiment in being intentionally uneducated ended.

I liked Tammy a lot, but still hadn’t met her. I felt like I knew her a little better than I did though because of a mutual friend we shared.  His name was Corey.  He went to my school and was a drummer in the band.  He was one of my best friends.  He also happened to go to Tammy’s church, where the two of them would hang out a lot during youth group activities.

Not long after our phone conversation, Corey came up to me at school and asked what I was doing over the weekend.

“Nothing really.”, I said.

“Wanna go to Susquehanna University with my church youth group for a campus tour?”

“No thanks.  I don’t think Susquehanna is a place I’d end up for college.”

“Tammy’s in youth group.  She’s going.”

“What? Ok yeah- I’ll go!”

“Good! She asked me to ask you to go along.”

“Really?!  I’m definitely going!”

So we went. I got up early to get picked up by Corey’s mom, who drove us to the church where we met Tammy and the others, got on the bus, and went to Susquehanna University for a campus tour.  I didn’t care at all about the college or the tour.  I just wanted Tammy and I to hang out together all day.  And that’s what we did.

By the time we got back to the church, I felt like I was just supposed to be with her.  It seemed like I knew her much better than I actually did.  It was like when you have good friend you haven’t seen in a while, but when you get together you just pick right up where you left off.  Except- we didn’t have anything to pick up from. 

The next few weeks must have pissed my parents off because all I did was talk to Tammy on the phone.  These were the days of having one phone for the whole house, but for my family it must have been like having zero phones because ours was always busy.

The Bethany Church dance was coming up soon and we were both excited.  Everybody got excited for these events.  Several times per year, kids from all across the city congregated in the basement of Bethany Presbyterian Church on North West End Ave in Lancaster to dance, mix, mingle, and inevitably, do things junior high kids shouldn’t do.  I didn’t always go to dances, but I had a big reason not to miss this one!

The dance happened on February 3, 1984.  Yes- you read that right.  1984.

At some point, during one of the slow dances, I asked Tammy the most important question in the junior high lexicon. 

“Will you go with me?”

“Yes.”

I wasn’t surprised, but yet I was too.  How did this happen?  I never even had an official girlfriend before and now I get this great one?

Her head moved toward me and I knew we were going to kiss.  I hoped I somehow knew what I was doing…..

I don’t know if I did, or if Tammy didn’t care that I didn’t, but either way it worked out. When the calendar hit February 3, a few weeks ago, we began our 42nd year together. 

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