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The Queen, the Senator and a Forrest Gump moment [1]
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Date: 2022-09-15
HRH Queen Elizabeth II arrives in Philadelphia to help the ex-colonies celebrate the Bicentennial in July, 1976
Even tho I’ve been on DK for years, this is my first posting. I promise it will be short.
The headline picture is a scan of a photo taken with a Kodak 110 camera, which explains the lo-rez quality. In addition, I was simultaneously juggling a sousaphone to get the camera in position so there may be some jitter.
I honestly don’t remember what music we played as the Queen disembarked. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t “Stars and Stripes Forever”; that would have been a little too snarky. More likely, it was something like “Hands Across the Sea”.
The more interesting story, imo, happened a week or two earlier. We were playing gigs around the Philadelphia area in the lead-up to July Fourth. One day, the chief had us drive out to a shady park adjacent to the river. After lounging around for a while, a limo pulled up and we were introduced to John Warner. John was the former Secretary of the Navy and future US Senator who had been appointed by President Ford to oversee preparations for the Bicentennial. As it turns out, he was also an aspiring composer. Music was passed around — a ceremonial march, unsurprisingly. We sight-read it. Decades have passed so I don’t actually remember the melodies, but I remember my reaction very clearly. Two words: cringe worthy. We were polite and no one showed their reactions outwardly, but the look of disappointment on the composer’s face was clear. He collected the parts and we never saw them (or him) again. To me, writing music to welcome the visiting monarch was an admirable gesture. Too bad it didn’t work out. My only regret from the entire experience was that I didn’t have the presence of mind to get a photo with (soon-to-be Senator) John Warner.
Mr. Warner was not the first future senator I encountered and I had even closer encounters with foreign heads of state. Like Forrest Gump, I was totally unaware of the significance of the meetings until much later. But those are stories for another time.
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