Sample Chapter

CHAPTER 2
The Drum Major Fiasco

In the spring of 1985, I tried out for drum major of the Montgomery Junior High School Marching Band. In my junior high school, the drum major was the equivalent of the high school quarterback. Being drum major meant having the most popularity in junior high school. In reality, I hoped that by winning the coveted position of drum major of Montgomery Junior High School, lots of girls would want to be my girlfriend. Then I could just pick the prettiest one to be my girlfriend.

All a drum major does is wear a funny costume, twirl a long stick called a “mace”, and march in front of the band in parades and in marching band competitions. Drum majors merely serve as figureheads for the band. Still, everyone who wanted to be someone in Montgomery Junior High School tried out for drum major every year.

In the spring of 1985, after the try-outs the marching band elected Andy Dimacali drum major. They elected me assistant drum major. Assistant drum major was basically like a vice president. My only duty was basically to lead the marching band in performances or in rehearsal in case Andy could not.

The mechanics of marching band in junior high school require some explanation. The mace serves as the symbol of the drum major’s authority over the marching band. To be seen carrying the long mace brought much respect and admiration to the one carrying it. Before a marching band steps out in a parade and/or band competition, that is begins marching and playing music, the drum major flourishes the mace. By flourishing the mace, a drum major twirls it. If at any time during a marching competition, the drum major drops the mace, he or she cannot pick up the mace.

The drum major must salute the competition judges, but if the drum major salutes without possessing a mace, he or she is disqualified from the drum major competition, which is part of the overall band competition. Judges also take away points from the entire marching band if the drum major drops the mace.

At Montgomery Junior High, the winner of drum major try-outs was the candidate who did not drop the mace. If more than one did not drop the mace, then the band would elect the most popular candidate drum major, and the second most popular candidate would become assistant drum major. Since Andy was more popular than I was, I became assistant drum major for the 1985-1986 school year.

One young boy named Richard Deomampo had tried out for drum major in the spring of 1984, but he failed. He dropped the mace during try-pouts from drum major. Richard played percussion, mostly snare drum. Richard ran with the cool crowd, while I was more of a nerd. Still, when I won the position of assistant drum major in 1985, my victory infuriated him. He regretted not trying out of r drum major in 1985. Mr. Deomampo was certain would have beaten me in the try outs and would make a better drum major. He always let me know those “facts”.

In the summer of 1985, the officers of the marching band met at school with Mrs. Jeri Webb-Almanza, the band director, to plan the 1985-1986 school year. Richard held a minor position within the band and was there at the summer meeting. He snatched the mace from the corner in which usually stood. Richard then taunted me by saying, “Let me show you how to twirl the mace the right way.” Then he twirled the mace the right way, in his mind at least.
“I’m too busy right now,” I responded in the only way I knew at the time.

That summer, I had visions, the same vision over and over. IN my mind, I saw and knew that Andy could not lead the band in rehearsal. However, I saw that Richard would usurp my authority as assistant drum major, snatch the mace from me, and lead the marching band. The vision haunted me during the summer of 1985.

“I’m going to lose my position as assistant drum major,” I said to my brother Ron Molles, who is older than me.

“Don’t think that way,” Ron said to me.

Yet, I thought as a 14 year old teenager, as the 14 year old teenager I was at the time.
Soon after the visions started, my father, Pablo Molles, landed a job with the US Post Office in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our family would have to move away from San Diego so my father could take the job. My parents loved Las Vegas and had dreams of living there. Yet, I knew my father’s new job meant I would lose my position as assistant drum major, my popularity, and the girlfriend I would have gained from my popularity.

I devised a scheme to keep them all. I asked my aunt, Corazon Yuson, or Aunt Zon, as I called her, if I could live with her and my cousins Gigi Yuson and Joie Yuson. Eduardo Yuson, or Uncle Ed, Aunt Zon’s husband was deployed with the US Navy and did not live with them most of the time those days.

Aunt Zon lived near my house in South San Diego, and I could still attend Montgomery Junior High School. I cared more about my position as assistant drum major, about my popularity, and about my potential girlfriend than about my own family. My parents and Aunt Zon agreed I would live with her in our South San Diego neighborhood of Otay Mesa near the US/Mexico border. Yet, my decision to leave my parents would cause everyone much grief.

My parents and Ron moved to North Las Vegas, while I stayed with Aunt Zon, Joie, and Gigi at their house. I started school at Montgomery Junior High School in September 1985. In marching band, Richard and his cronies heckled me whenever they had a chance. Richard, for example, poked fun at the way I twirled the drum major mace. He called me a nerd since I excelled in school while he was a mediocre student at best. Whenever we met, Richard made derogatory comments about my being assistant drum major.

He felt entitled to the position and that I had unfairly stolen it from him. Richard would mock the way I talked and used my own words against me. In short, Richard hated me because I took away from him something he had wanted.

Why was a nerd assistant drum major? Richard probably wondered how he as a cool guy lost the position of assistant drum major to a nerd like me. Richard harassed me at school, doing everything but physically attacking me. Richard couldn’t stand that I exist, and worse that I was assistant drum major and he wasn’t. The whole rivalry was downright silly. Yet, being assistant drum major was the most important thing in t he world to both of us teenagers.

As a 14-year old boy, I was still very close to my parents. I missed them very much as well as my brother Ron. I cried in Mrs. Webb-Almanza’s office as I explained to her my confusion and sadness at the time. She counseled me, knowing that I had separated myself from my family just to be assistant drum major, a do-nothing position.

When I announced to the band I was moving to North Las Vegas, I saw the wicked grin on Richard’s face. Mrs. Webb-Almanza also announced try-outs to replace me upon my departure from Montgomery Junior High School. I left San Diego and moved to my family’s house in North Las Vegas in October 1985.

My mother enrolled me at Von Tobel Junior High School, but the fact the school had no marching band disappointed me greatly. Still, on my first day as a student there, I walked into their band room. The concert band was rehearsing. As I walked by a young girl with short brown hair who was playing the flute, her face lit up in delight. She had a great smile as she looked at me.

I presented Mr. Harris, the portly band director, with my enrollment papers. He had me sit down in an empty chair while he rehearsed the concert band of Von Tobel Junior High School. After band class, the girl with the great smile and short brown hair approached me.

“What’s your name?” she asked me.

“Ken,” I said.

“I’m Shannon,” the girl said. For the next few months, I would see a lot of Shannon. Every day after band class, she would walk with me. She asked a lot of personal questions. “Who do you like?” Shannon asked me one day.

“I don’t like anybody,” I said to Shannon. I was depressed over my decision to leave Montgomery High Junior High School and forfeit my position of assistant drum major. How was I going to get a girlfriend then, I wondered. Shannon persisted in keeping me company in Von Tobel Junior High School. She walked with me everywhere I went.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked me.

“No,” I said to Shannon.

“If I asked you to go with me, what would you say?”

“I would say, ‘Yes.’” I said to Shannon. Thus, a new couple was born at Von Tobel Junior High School in North Las Vegas.

I didn’t need to be drum major to land a girlfriend. I just needed to be myself. Yet, at the time I did not appreciate the fact I had Shannon. I was still depressed about San Diego. Still, Shannon and I had a good time together. We held hands as we walked to class. We wrote love letters to each other. We ate lunch together. Her friends became my friends. Shannon and I saw each other all the time. We ended each day by me walking her to her school bus that took her home. I walked home or my parents picked up me.

However, Shannon one day told me she wanted to break up because she was moving away. She never did tell me the whole story, and after she left the school, I never saw her again. Life without Shannon was miserable, and I had no friends anymore. My father had terrible stomachaches from working the night shift at the post office as a custodian.

Mom, Dad, Ron, and I were all miserable in Nevada. After I got into a fight at school, my parents immediately decided to move back to South San Diego. We had rented our house there to tenants, and our rental contract allowed us to evict them with one month’s notice.

My father got back his old job as a cook for the jail the San Diego County Sheriff Department operated. For a month, my family stayed at Aunt Zon’s house while the tenants at our in South San Diego vacated the premises.

I returned to Montgomery Junior High School, and when I returned to marching band class, I discovered that Richard had become the new assistant drum major. He had tried out for my position after I left. Still, a new controversy arose. Since I was the original assistant drum major, because I had returned to Montgomery Junior High, did my return restore me to my position? Did my departure in the fall of 1985 leave my position open, especially since the band held try-outs to replace me?

“We actually have two assistant drum majors, Richard and Ken,” said Mrs. Webb-Almanza. The band director’s declaration before the marching band only confused the situation even more. As before, Richard heckled me whenever he saw me in band or in the hallways. We shared no other classes since I took advanced college preparatory classes.

One day in the spring of 1986, the marching band rehearsed for an annual competition called, “Maytime Band Review” or just, “Maytime”. The marching band competition took place in National City, in South San Diego County. I was one of the first people to take his position in the marching band block, or “fall in”, using marching band jargon. I held my trombone and waited for Mrs. Webb-Almanza and Andy Dimacali to come outside to lead marching rehearsal. Then I heard a crashing sound, the sound of the band room doors flying open and smashing against the walls of the music building of Montgomery Junior High School.

“Woo! Woo! Woo!” someone screamed like a monkey. Richard Deomampo stormed out of the band room with the mace in his hand. He stood at the drum major’s position at the front of the band block, right in my face. Richard looked me in the eye and yelled, “Fall in!” in triumph. The rest of the band fell into parade block, and Richard led the band in rehearsal.

I was furious. Richard had won the battle over who actually was the assistant drum major. I later learned that Andy had to serve detention and told Richard to lead the band rehearsal. As I marched under Richard’s orders during that rehearsal in the spring of 1986, I could hardly contain my fury. My vision in the summer of 1985 came to pass. After school, I went home, locked myself in my room, and cried.