A Deep River Year
July 23,  2014

Last weekend was Deep River's annual "Ancient Muster," the largest one-day gathering of fife and drum corps in the world.  It's been happening annually here on a July Saturday since 1953, and occasionally before that since 1879.  The boom and rattle of drums and the high-pitched music of fifes fills the air all weekend as travelling bands from as far away as Switzerland gather in friendly competition and an all-night jam session, called a "tattoo," on the local ball field.  Some residents are not too keen on listening to fife and drum music for a whole weekend, but most of us at least drag our lawn chairs down to Main Street for the Saturday parade.

A parade stirs childlike excitement in the stodgiest of souls.    And our parade has the usual side attractions.   There are balloon vendors and hot dog peddlers, and you can buy T-shirts and hats and badges to prove that you've been to beautiful downtown Deep River.   A portable barbecue smoker set up business in the parking lot behind the hardware store, and a host of curious children were gleefully grossed out to see the decapitated hog's head mounted on the sign over the stand.  But then the moment came for which everyone waited:   the flashing lights of the police escort, the snapping flags in the morning breeze, and the local drum corps stepping into view with a rousing version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

There are marchers dressed as sailors and pirates, some in bright formal uniforms with brass buttons and tricorn hats.   Kids on bicycles ride in and out of the spaces between the bands, smiling at the joy of being in the parade, too.  Muskets fire into the sky; we jump in our seats, laughing with the surprise of it.   Perhaps we're laughing with the joy that we can still be surprised, a sure sign of life.   In the musical "Hello, Dolly," the main character, Dolly Levi, a widow, realizes that it's time to she’s been living too long with sadness and solitude.   "Before the parade passes by," she sings, "I've gotta get some life back into my life."     "I wanna feel my heart coming alive again," she belts out with gusto.   On Saturday, we got a little taste of the parade that's waiting for all of us.

Comes the Parade

We were young once
and the band was far down the street
around a corner, invisible,
and we waited, watched,. listened
for the distant thunder,
the flutter of trumpets,
the hopeful throaty cheer from those
who could already see.
At last it came,
shaking the earth,
gleaming with reflected light
and carrying the world along
to the beat of an endless march,
then stepped along, away,
a passing dream,
the memory of a shining splendor
that once we saw.
We are older now,
still peering into the distance,
standing on tiptoe and looking for the band
to come again and raise a pulse in us.
But I hope for this:
that we may waken to a breathless morning
and see a child down the street
glimpse something luminous in us
bright as a sweet trumpet's song,
maybe even hear the tap of drums
which is the march beat of our life,
and  believe that there is
always a parade
and we are in it.

--Timothy Haut, July 23.  2014