Every year the City of Torrance holds an annual Armed Forces Day celebration, which exceeds its eponymous time allotment three-fold, with parades and exhibits and events all weekend long. It's a pretty big deal, locally speaking, being one of the few cities still holding such an event. Our usual focus is the military band concert at Armstrong Theater held on Friday night - generally filled with enough live Sousa to rouse even the most uncivil of civilians. The concert is one of the big-wig affairs of the weekend and draws a brigade of military brass each year. The top-ranking officers from all the branches across Southern California are represented and all show up at the theater in an armed cavalcade of presidential proportions. The rooftops of the theater and all the surrounding buildings are decked out with snipers and you can bearly make your way through the courtyard for all the bald behemoths in sunglasses and ear pieces looking like they're posing for an Oscar® statue.
The opening act for the band is always a pre-show drill team demo in the theater courtyard. Twirling rifles and flashing bayonets - these guys are tight and precise and a ton of fun to watch. L and N, not being able to see too well through the wall of dignitaries, were invited by one of the officers to come stand up in front in the midst of all the military VIPs, much (I'm sure) to the chagrin of all the secret service folks trying to keep the riff-raff at a bay. Afterwards the kids were invited to meet the cadets and shake their hands, and both L and N were given the chance to hold one of the rifles.
This year's concert was by the United States Air Force Band of the Golden West hailing from of Travis Air Force Base in the Bay area. Commander and conductor Captain Haley Armstrong headed up the team with humor and a great smile, leading works from Russia (Shostakovich's "Festive Overture"), Italy (Julie Giroux's "Italian Rhapsody"), and Ireland (Leroy Anderson's "The Girl I Left Behind Me"), as well as a healthy plethora of the not-to-be excluded Sousa marches. I love band music and this was indeed a tight, disiciplined, drill-team of a band, so it was a pretty fantastic concert all in all.
After the concert as we were leaving the theater, we saw the conductor being escorted across the lobby by a secret service agent. N immediately shouted "The conductor!" and took off across the crowded room. To my horror a second later I saw him tackle her around the thighs in a big hug. She looked momentarily shocked, and the SS guy stiffened visibly, but Capt. Armstrong, evidently understanding it was friendly fire, returned the hug. My blood pressure, which had shot off the charts in my panic, started to trend downward, but only for a moment. The next thing I knew N had turned and plunged himself into a heart-felt embrace of the secret service agent. I think we'll never know just how close my son came last night to being dropped by a dozen sniper rounds.
Ten o'clock and way past all of our bedtimes, there was still a little Americana left in each of us, so we had to finish off the evening (and celebrate the positive outcome of N's tender terrorism) with a stop at the most patriotic place on earth:
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