Building the Green Machine by Colt Foutz

Author:Colt Foutz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: BIO006000
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781611210309
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2009-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

Whenever the Cavaliers thought they’d put their troubles in the 1970s behind them, another problem waited around the bend, but steadfast leadership and loyal alumni would ultimately save the corps from a long march into irrelevance. Don Warren Collection

Chapter 18

The Naugahyde Era

IF THE CAVALIERS clung to anything during their slide from the top, it was irreverence that sometimes ran afoul of authority, but made transcontinental bus rides each sweltering summer about the most fun any boy ever had.

As in the old days, recruiting was done through word of mouth, and family members were the most convincing salesmen.

Bob Jackson, color guard member from 1966-72, followed cousins Rob, John and Chuck Robertson into the Cavaliers. His aunt and grandmother were avid Booster Club members. Jackson learned early which entity ruled Logan Square, a lesson passed to his sister Dorothy’s nephew, Rich Maryanski, who joined the cadets in ‘73. “I spent years listening to them talk about the Cavaliers,” Jackson said. “Then in ‘65, I went to see a show and then spent the whole summer there.” A summer turned into two decades. When Dan Heeres was tapped as director in 1974, he chose former cohort Jackson as assistant director. “We had a kid arrested for arson,” Craig Rasin said, speaking of a sleep-over at Jackson’s house. “I’m saying, ‘Bob, what’s the idea? We’ve got an arsonist sleeping with us? If we smell smoke, what do we do?’”

Rasin marched with the Belleville Black Knights from 1969-71 before joining the Cavaliers in ‘72 with brother Don, partly because the Black Knights were converting from an all-male outfit to a mixed corps. He figured color guard performance would suffer, so he signed on in Logan Square. “The glory years came when I joined the Cavaliers—for the Black Knights,” Rasin moaned. “The Black Knights beat the Cavaliers in ‘73.”

Sam Flores came to the Cavaliers with his Evanston High School band instructor, Dan Spaulding. Unlike many of his comrades, Flores was an aspiring music major, and was recruited to play a new instrument—marching xylophone. “I was just scared to death. These were the street kids. I was a rookie and they really took rookies as the scum of the earth. You were nothing. You’re gonna have to prove to us that, you know, you are something special. And so I did what my folks had always told me—keep my mouth shut and my ears open. I did everything they told me to.”

The 1970s Cavaliers also included June “Ma” Gengler and her sons, Doug and Jim. Doug played horn before his appointment as drum major; Jim played contrabass for all but one year, when he toted a flag. “Their house off Irving Park and Armitage, it was basically the general hotel,” Rasin said. “She had kids staying there all summer long.” Ma Gengler was nurse on tour and manager of the winter guard team. She was one of few women to travel with the corps in its early history, but not one who took any guff. One quote

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