The trumpet player

I once played the trumpet. While this is an instrument usually played by boys and men — girls play the clarinet, flute, or violin — I played the trumpet because it was the instrument my father had played when he was a child. We had his trumpet, and it was a beautiful silver horn.

After a few years of performing in a high school band I was invited to join McLure’s Student Band. This was a group of students from Littleton, Lisbon, Monroe and Woodsville selected by George McLure, the director and bus driver, with his wife Pat McLure assisting, our teacher.

We were described as “advanced students” and in the spring learned a routine that included a few fancy dance steps. We wore handsome, red, wool uniforms with brass buttons, a wide black belt, wide pants with a gold stripe down the side and on our heads a tall, red hat with a plume.

I recently found a postcard with the schedule for our “Early Bookings for 1965.”

There are 19 concerts on the list, including the New York World’s Fair (July 21–22); the Bradford and Danville, Vermont, bicentennials; county fairs across New Hampshire; and a special appearance at a program in Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada.

Then there were the series: Six concerts in Bethlehem on Friday nights, nine concerts in Whitefield on Tuesday nights, and eight concerts in Littleton on Thursday nights. We had our own bus, with McLure’s Student Band painted on the side, and being pulled in the back a unit where our uniforms were stored. When we arrived the flaps on the side were lifted and we would claim our hat box. We lined up for our uniforms stored in plastic bags in order on racks lining the interior. We wore white shirts, white bucks, white socks, and white gloves. One always had to be on the alert for a check to be certain the white bucks had been polished, the white gloves were clean, and the white shirt was one that could be visible if we were ever forced to remove our jackets on a hot summer day.

Looking back at a scrapbook I wonder how, as young teenagers, we managed this schedule. We were disciplined. George McLure had a reputation for having the personality of a Marine sergeant and not one of us ever missed a bus or were late for a performance.

I hadn’t thought about playing the trumpet or performing at the World’s Fair and Yankee Stadium until last week. A young musician I had met was performing at a café in the Bronxville, New York, train station. His name is Eganam “Ego” Segbefia and he is a trumpet player who got his start busking at the Grand Central Shuttle subway station in 2015. He is originally from Nigeria and found he could connect with the culture in the United States through his music. As he had performed at a dinner I attended and then helped me with providing microphones and speakers for an event I was hosting, I wanted to support him and say thank you by traveling to Bronxville to hear his performance.

His playing, jazz and then tunes we all know and love, is wonderful. I love his sound.

Yet it was the people who were there that surprised me. There were suburban couples, young college students, people who were there to hear Ego specifically. All around people were smiling, talking to one another and just enjoying an evening of feeling good. There was a sense of community among us and it was a very diverse collection of people.

It is only three stops on Metro-North from my station at 125th Street to the Bronxville train station.

It wasn’t a late night or a difficult trip. Riding home I couldn’t help but reflect on the possibility of people living together, side by side and enjoying what it is that brings us together in harmony: music, literature, dance — the arts.

I got by playing the trumpet. I practiced. I loved being in McLure’s Student Band. We had fun traveling together as a tight group of young people under the watchful eye of George, as we called him. There is power and harmony in music. If only.

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Elizabeth Howard is the host of the Short Fuse Podcast, found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or through the Arts Fuse. Her career intersects journalism, marketing, and communications. "Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back," a book she edited, was published in May 2016. She is the author of "A Day with Bonefish Joe," a children’s book, published by David R. Godine. You can send her a note at eh@elizabethhoward.com.