On Bugs Bunny's 75th Birthday!

Growing up as a kid in the 1960’s, Saturday morning cartoons were part and parcel to my early growing up years. All of the major TV studios would show cartoons for our pleasure. It may have even been a follow-on to the wildly successful family programming of the Walt Disney Co.: The Wonderful World of Disney. Initially the format was to replay the cartoons played before theatrical released movies of the 1940’s and 50’s. Eventually, cartoon programming was being created just for TV and often used as a showcase that advertisers could show products to a burgeoning post war market. Breakfast cereals such as Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, and Rice Crispies immediately come to mind. Like Mickey Mouse is the iconic mascot of Disney, Bugs Bunny was to the Warner Brothers Studios. Bugs Bunny is celebrating his 75th anniversary today, 27 July 2015, debuting in “A Wild Hair” with the voice of Mel Blanc.

Of all the zany madcap cartoons Bugs starred in, it is his 1948 “My Bunny Lies over the Sea” that has Bugs getting lost on his was to vacationing at California’s La Brea Tar Pits and instead winds up in Scotland. He meets character Angus MacRory wearing a kilt and playing a version of Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond on his bagpipes. Bugs mistakes the pipes as a monster attacking ‘an old lady’, Bugs stomping the bagpipes to pieces, much to Angus’s chagrin. MacRory and Bugs spend the rest of the cartoon in various challenges such as golf and eventually a piping challenge. MacRory does his best playing a very fast pieced piece, but Bugs plays the bagpipes with bass drum balanced on his head (played by his ears) and various band instruments attached to drones, etc. When watching the cartoon again, I realize that both Bugs and the Scot MacRory are voiced by Mel Blanc.

As a kid, this classic cartoon would play every so often in the Saturday morning cartoon lineup, and when it did, I loved it. I do not recall when I first saw it, but I do recall it distinctly enough to describe it as some of the earliest bagpiping I remember. As a side note, I was amazed in junior high with a revelation that many of the cartoons seen on Saturdays were released before I was born and came from the 1940’s. Thankfully, I’m not so old as to remember the original releases, but it’s also wonderful to be old enough to have experienced some of those early moments and programming of the TV age. And that Bugs Bunny and his cartoon contemporaries are ageless and can still be seen.

So cheers to the creative team who created that “Wascally Wabbit’ for our delight and entertainment 75 years ago and for their insight in using the bagpipes as a bit of comic relief.

On Piping on the 4th of July

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” - Thomas Paine

On this 4th of July, 2015, the day starts early with preparing to march with the band in the Piedmont, CA parade. Our band has been participating in the parade some twenty plus years (so I’m told). On a Saturday morning, there is little traffic heading to the East Bay as our band members converge from all over the Bay area. Piedmont was the home of Catherine Young, our former Pipe Major, and is situated in the beautiful hill above Oakland and just south of Berkeley. As the celebration is a one direction parade half the band (those early to arrive) park at the end of the parade and walk the parade route to the staging area, and those who a rise and get under way a little later, park in the neighborhood near the start of the parade (they will have to walk back when the parade is over).

We meet at the staging area at approximately 8:30 for a 10:30 step off. Pipers immediately begin warming up adding the playing to the growing cacophony of sound. Through this process we each rough in our tuning in preparation for tuning with the PM. If you are like me, then you try and come prepared, practiced and tuned ahead of time so tuning (both chanter and drones) will go smoothly and quickly. It just so happened that this year, my high ‘A’ gave me tuning problems, drat! I was able to eventually sort it out and please the PM. The drummers are performing a similar ritual, tuning their instruments with the Drum Sergeant until he is satisfied with their sound. This year we have two new side drummers who are performing their first gig with the band, and one of them has never marched in a parade. So it will be a day of fun filled memorable firsts. Our amazing friends, the Piedmont Highland Dancers are also warming up, stretching and practicing for their number in front of the reviewing stand. At some point we are all called to ‘circle up’ and play the tuning sequence and then a tune of two. Then we break formation and wait our turn to go. Everyone is encouraged to stay in the shade as that is where we tuned. The warming sun will throw our tuning off soon enough. Maybe as the sun, and our playing warm the pipes, we will all rise in pitch together. We will be under way soon enough.

We march in formation, on the tap, to within yards of the starting corner of the parade. The Drum Major calls out the tune having conferred with the PM, then by the rolls we step off playing Crags of Tumbledown Mountain, our beautiful banner carriers in front (in red cowboy boots, band t-shirts and Glengarries) followed by the color guard. Piedmont’s 4th of July Parade is near perfect. Approximately one half mile long, cool weather, with great crowds cheering us on. Because of the length of the parade and the crowds lining the streets the full way, the band takes few breaks from playing. There are, as in all parades, some ‘starts and stops’ along the way. We even have a long enough ‘stop’ to have a practice run through of our band’s marching drill, then playing Orange and Blue for the dancers, and marching back into block formation playing Scotland the Brave. Before you know it, we are at the reviewing stand, perform for the judges then march out. Within the next several blocks, the parade is over. After dismissing, our PM plays Happy Birthday for our talented Bass drummer, Marie, whose birthday was on the 3rd of July.

To be part of an annual tradition such as a 4th of July parade with such an enthusiastic crowd is fun. Walking back to the car, I even met a couple friends for whom I performed solo for last summer at a birthday! It was great to touch base with both lovely ladies. I was home by probably 1:30 and still had time for BBQ with friends, and fireworks viewing with family and friends. Parades, U.S. flags, fireworks, and reflection of the diversity of our land and her people, the amazing liberties our fore fathers fought and won for us ARE worth celebrating. America does have her faults; we are a work in progress; we are one nation under God, founded on Biblical principles, and remains the greatest country on Earth. May God bless the United States of America!

Happy 4th of July!