Time Capsule Trumpet

When a friend mentioned her daughter asked to play trumpet in 6th grade band, I was happy to offer my old Selmer. This is the trumpet I’ve packed up, left untouched and moved to four different homes in the last couple of decades. It’s the one I played most days of the week during the school year for roughly eight years.

Opening up the case before taking it to the professionals for a tune-up was like cracking open a time capsule. There was our school song, laminated and crumpled after years of basketball games. (“Sherwood High School, hats off to thee!”) There was the crepe paper, red poppy and American Legion label twisted around the brass for Memorial Day “Taps”. There was my 7th grade handwriting with my name, school and address in the event my trumpet and I were separated at a competition. (Was my mailing address actually Box 1? It’s true!)

Looking back, it seems my trumpet and I were rarely separated during that long stretch of time. Eight years is an extremely long stretch of time for a kid! My recollection of high school band (grades 7 – 12 seated across the gym stage, curtain closed) involves heaping sympathy for the music teachers who, let’s be honest, had little to work with. Yet every day he or she showed up, waving a small not-so-magic wand and hoping for a miracle. I also played for two years in college under the direction of the incredible Gordy Lindquist, a northcentral N.D. legend, made legendary by his ability to tickle the ivories while they were covered up by a sheet, or playing behind his back and in a variety of other contorted and hilarious moves including upside down. You couldn’t help but love being in the room with him, your classmates and your instrument which you played in the ordinary, boring way and not upside down.

Then I tucked the Selmer trumpet into its velvet outline, latched the black case and moved it to four homes until finally, finally a girl will play it. With the “Minnesota Rouser” and “Taps” tucked into the horn’s history, now it will learn new tunes. In the beginning, each note will come painstakingly slow until suddenly, a song will emerge, a new life lived.