Ossining, New York, in the ‘Unwoke’ 1950s

The only time I and my fellow trombone players were noticed was during a parade. Because the trombone’s slide extends a good 3 feet beyond the marcher playing it, we marched in the front row to keep from hitting others in the band with our slides. John Philip Sousa’s marches—especially “Washington Post,” “The Thunderer,” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever”—had great trombone parts, and that is what we played every Memorial Day, when the members of the Ossining High School Band put on our heavy uniforms and our white buck shoes and marched and played up and down Main Street and State Street (can you get more Our Town than that?) in the well-attended parade.