Spare Moments at My Folks' Farm 4

When I was in fifth grade, my father suggested that we visit the Nesbitt Farm in Benton County, Indiana, to consider buying a purebred Polled Hereford. (The word polled means that the cattle are born without horns.) The idea was for me to show the cow at the county fair and to start a line of pedigreed Herefords to help pay for my eventual college education.

Vicky, a Polled Hereford from Nesbitt Farm

I remember Mr. Nesbitt as having a pleasant smile and standing tall. If you wanted to produce a child’s coloring book featuring life on the farm, your farmer would look like Mr. Nesbitt. He guided us to a pasture where we could see the heifers. Immediately, one caught my eye. She had a happy expression, almost as if she shared Mr. Nesbitt’s jovial smile. I asked my father if we could buy her, and Dad consented. Mr. Nesbitt invited us into his kitchen to sign the paperwork.

Me with My Nesbitt Farm Clarinet

Pine Village High School Marching Band

Pine Village, Indiana, 1971

On a table was a clarinet in a tan case. I stared at it as if mesmerized. For some time, I had wanted to learn to play the clarinet.

“Say,” Mr. Nesbitt said, reading my mind, “you wouldn’t know of anybody in the market for a clarinet, would you? My daughter wants to sell hers.”

I thought it was too much to be gaining a lovely heifer, already a pet in my mind, and a clarinet—all in the same day. So I said nothing. Dad understood how much I wanted a clarinet, and one look at my not-daring-to-hope face told him all he needed to know.

“I guess we could consider the clarinet, too,” said my father. “How much do you want for it?”

“Fifty dollars,” replied Mr. Nesbitt.

All the way home, I carried the clarinet in my lap. My heart was racing. I could hardly believe my good fortune. I needed no further proof that I had the greatest dad in the world!

Learning to play the instrument, though, was a struggle. My parents took me to lessons at a music store in Lafayette. For the first several weeks, my teacher, a young man named Mr. Baker, kept trying to help me make a note on it. All that happened was that my breath escaped around the mouthpiece until I had puffed so much that I could puff no more. One glorious afternoon, the clarinet emitted an enormous squawk! What a thrill! Mr. Baker breathed a sigh of relief while I smiled from ear to ear.

Me in the Indiana University Marching Hundred in 1975

From that day forward, my abilities rapidly progressed. That summer, I learned that Mr. Davis, the band director in my hometown of Pine Village, was adding younger musicians to the high school band so as to make it as large as possible for the band competition at the State Fair. He accepted me into the ranks. All summer, the augmented band rehearsed on the school playground. The competition consisted of parade shows, not football field shows. From the moment when the front rank of the band crossed the starting line until the back rank stepped over the finish line, a stop watch counted the seconds. Going overtime would cost precious points. Mr. Davis had built an observation platform accessible by a ladder. From the platform, he looked down on the band to see if the lines were straight. Over the weeks of practice, the band pounded the grass into powder. The white stripes that were formed with lime disappeared into the dust.

Ray Cramer

Director of the Indiana University Marching Hundred

Photograph by Larry Crewell

Bloomington Daily Herald–Telephone, 1975

My memories of the trip to Indianapolis include gagging on the girls’ hairspray on the bus, making sure that the decorative cords around the shoulder of my uniform were in the right place, and waiting in a line of bands that stretched as far as the eye could see. In those years, over a hundred bands of smaller schools competed on the day that the Pine Village band took part. Our organization came out somewhere in the top third. I can still recall part of the melodies and part of the steps.

Me on the Undergraduate Staff

Of the Indiana University Marching Hundred

Rehearsing New Members During Band Camp

In the Old Stadium on the IU Campus, 1975

 

I named my Hereford Vicky. She lived for the rest of her long life on our farm and produced many calves, all of them as sweet-tempered as she was. They helped me meet the cost of tuition at Indiana University, where I became a fixture. I earned my bachelor’s degree, my master’s, and my doctorate at IU. For the first four years, I performed on the clarinet with the famed Marching Hundred, with the pep band during the marvelous basketball seasons when Bobby Knight was the head coach, and with the summer concert band with music performed beside the iconic Showalter Fountain. I shared the title of Outstanding Bandsman with Fred Kelly, the drum major. For the next five years (while I completed my MA and my PhD), I served on the graduate staff of the Marching Hundred and continued to play clarinet in the pep band.

So the trip to Nesbitt Farm truly shaped my future.