When you wear that green band jacket, you become family. I know what they went through to earn the right and privilege to wear that jacket just as I did. The sweat from our pores, dirt from the practice field and blood from our bodies are on those jackets. Yes, there are also the remains of spirits spilled on it decades ago from our celebration of a job well done and the respect of “The Man.”
All of this is there because of Mr. Ronald P. Socciarelli. He made us want to be not just better marchers, not just better students, but better people. We lost our director, our coach, our surrogate father, our mentor, our friend. Each of us had that special moment or memory of him. We have been using the medium of Facebook as therapy. We all came together on Saturday to remember him. I marched next to others that were older than me by a decade or more and others that weren’t even born when I received my band jacket. On the field, it didn’t matter. We were all one. All with the same reason. To give just five more minutes to Mr. S. and make it “not as good as, but better than, the best ever.”
Wendy Mandel was a member of the Marching 110 from 1983 to 1987.
