Maytime

It's been 10 years since the end of the Maytime Band Review.

It used to be the biggest, baddest band review of them all - the year-ending one that mattered, that band directors spoke of as the culmination of an entire school year. The first Saturday of May (exception to be noted), bands up and down California could be found there, in uniforms as perfectly fitted as they could possibly be, shoes shined, ranks marked off precisely by staff and alumni who had done so many times before.  Teenage musicians who had awakened at 4AM to get on a bus at 5AM to arrive in National City at 7AM to be ready to warm up at 8AM, get in their spot in the line up so they could step off in front of the judges at 9AM. Followed by another band 10 minutes later. And another band 10 minutes after that - all morning long.

There were a number of reasons it stopped. The organizers - some of whom had been running the review since it started in 1947 - were unable to find sufficient workers to keep it going. And the city planned to beautify the area with a plan that included islands that made the main thoroughfare unusable for a review. There's certainly a possibility, though, that marching bands aren't quite what they were 120 years ago, when leading a marching band was what John Philips Sousa was famous for. There are other ways to make music, now, most of which don't require even a small fraction of seventy-six trombones.

Ten years ago, too, was still the waning of the Unraveling. The oldest Millennials were just graduating high school and college, and they still weren't quite as central to culture as they are today. That this review - and many others - fit snugly into the period between that last Crisis and this one could mean it wasn't meant for more turbulent times. Or that it was another creation of the High that made sense at that time, continued on through the Awakening, but required more societal support than the Unraveling could conjure. Which is confirmed, slightly, by the reason for that "exception" mentioned: If the first Saturday of May was the first of May, the band review would be on the following Saturday. Clearly, the traditionalists who had been running the review since the Hollywood Ten were in front of the HUAC were a little concerned about having something that looked like a parade that day.