Newtown Volunteers Helping Launch New Park City Drumlines

By John Voket

As several local members of the recently rejuvenated Park City Pride Drum and Bugle Corps tell it, the Bridgeport region used to play host to dozens of the musical parade units. These colorfully costumed corps inspired thousands of young people who picked up sticks and horns instead of bats or basketballs, and chose the tightly crafted pageantry of marching instead of loosely formed street gangs or cliques that opted to hang out looking for trouble.

The lessons learned and friendships forged have lasted indelibly to this day. And in the coming weeks, a group of these drum corps fans (or fanatics), including several from Newtown, plan to resurrect the legacy of those dozens of Bridgeport marching organizations.

Their collective hope is to work with other interested musicians and the Bridgeport Police Athletic League (PAL) to recruit enough interested young people to establish a brand new generation of regional drum corps. This new group, The PAL Buccaneers junior corps, will educate more than 200 children aged 12–19 drawn from area middle schools, high schools, and colleges.

The PAL volunteers are sponsoring an open house on March 30 at their headquarters, 7 Quarry Road, Trumbull (at the corner of Old Town Road), to inform the public and to promote corps membership. According to Carl Rodia, PAL executive director, drum and bugle corps feature brass and percussion music played while performing precision marching routines.

“In addition to music, the corps’ color guard provides visual impact through their marching and handling of parade rifles, mock sabers, and flags,” Mr Rodia said in a written statement. “The PAL Buccaneers music training will feature a wide range of music education enrichment programs ranging from basic music education for beginners to providing advanced training and a performance spotlight for more accomplished student musicians.”

Much of that visual training is coming from Bob Findlay and Bart Healy, a pair of volunteers who just last weekend helped lead Newtown’s High School Winter Guard to a Bronze Medal finish in the Boston WGI Regional competition. Both Mr Findlay and Mr Healy have been passionately engaged in coaching drum corps and scholastic marching organizations up and down the East Coast for decades.

Mr Findlay said he is excited at the idea of taking yet another fledgling crew of young people and slowly building them into an entertaining ensemble.

“I love it,” he told The Bee Monday. “It’s almost the same thing I’ve been doing for years with freshman high school classes. But the real satisfaction comes in knowing we helped plant a seed, or opened a door that can lead to the discovery of music in this form.”

Mr Healy, like his counterpart, participated in one of the dozen junior drum corps that sprung up in the Bridgeport region in the late 1950s and early 60s. As he graduated from St Raphael’s Buccaneers to the Bridgeport Fire Department’s Scarlet Knights, to establishing the Trumbull Troubadours, Mr Healy developed his talents for directing the marching and maneuvering aspects of the corps.

“Drum corps were pretty much what all my friends did back in those glory years,” he said. “There had to be several thousand kids in a 50- or 60-square-mile area around Bridgeport back in the late 50s.”

While the region boasted many similar organizations in their youth, many of those who went on to other pursuits lost touch with their fellow musicians and the camaraderie of the drumline. Then a little over a year ago, several interested parties got together and proposed a one-time-only senior drum corps reunion.

The activity was expected to gather a dozen or so former participants for a single performance — a so-called “swan song” — before the old uniforms and instruments got packed away for good. But according to Newtown resident Cathy Bobowick Harmonay, the response to the proposal was so overwhelming that more than 100 former senior corps marchers ended up getting together and subsequently formed the Bridgeport Pride Senior Drum and Bugle Corps.

In just the past year, that talented group became so popular that it has been courted for numerous parades and concerts throughout the Northeast. Just talking about her “glory days” and the chance to expose a whole new generation of youths to the joy of discovering music and marching brings a tinge of excitement to Ms Harmonay’s voice.

“When I was their age I marched in drum corps as an alternative to hanging out and getting in trouble,” she said. “Now that we’re all in our 50s and older, it’s amazing that we can still do so much of what we first learned when we were just 15 or 16.”

Ms Harmonay, who participated in the Notre Dame all-girls marching band as a teen, thinks the formation of the PAL junior Buccaneers will give a much-needed boost to many young people who have lost all but the most elementary of music education in their school curriculum. “It’s also a great alternative if these kids aren’t into sports. It can help fill their free time, and you know what they say about music helping to improve students’ academic performance,” she said.

Dave Caschetto, another Newtown resident, is a soprano horn player in the Park City Pride and is committed to assisting with the new junior corps. His motivation comes from his vivid memories of the blaring horns and crisp marching formations he participated in as a teenager.

“These were great times,” he recalled in an email to The Bee. “While with PAL, 1965–1967, our competitions taught me teamwork, discipline and the joy that can come from doing something you really love. We learned how to look to our corps director and instructors for training, support, and leadership.

“We traveled, competed, won and lost but cared about each other and sometimes found old friends as adversaries when in the same competition. Off the field of competition we still walked to school together, but once in uniform it was us against them,” he said.

Mr Caschetto said the open house and the corps it will yield will provide an “awesome opportunity” for the youth of the area to discover personal achievement, make friends, and experience the importance of working with others toward a common goal.

“Many of our Newtown friends from the Pride senior corps will be attending the open house to show the kids how lifelong friendships can be formed, fun had, and the thrill of learning to play a musical instrument and competing in drum corps can bring to them,” he said.

Newtowner Duane Giannini, a snare drummer in the Pride, is also planning to lend a hand with this important project.

“Being able to continue to perform regularly with the Pride, and now having the chance to work with new students, makes me feel like I’m 16 again,” Mr Giannini said. “The things these kids will be able to experience are magical, and it’s a privilege to be able to pass that on to a whole new generation.”

Mr Giannini credited Mr Marella with bringing the concept to reality. But as far as Mr Marella is concerned, it is just another one in a series of activities he knows will make a difference in the lives of local young people who have too few productive options these days.

“These corps we all came from helped educate Bridgeport area youth and establish a tradition of discipline, teamwork, and social responsibility,” he said. “The PAL Buccaneers will focus on building character with their music, percussion, and marching training in keeping with the best traditions of junior drum corps in Bridgeport. The corps will build on that tradition in this historic revival of the sport for area youth.”

For more information about participating in the open house, or to volunteer, call 203-576-7604 or come to the open house March 30 in Trumbull. For details about the Park City Pride, visit the website at www.theparcitypride.org.