A Blast From the Past!

Tonight, as Andrew, Olivia, and I were heading back from Mass, dinner, and a quick errand in the rain, I turned on the radio. We have XM in our cars. I put mine on "Watercolors" which is the c-jazz (contemporary jazz) station. When we were almost home, a song came on that seemed somewhat familiar to me. About 30 seconds into it, I checked the artist and song title, wondering why it sounded so familiar, and brought a smile to my face. It was Chuck Mangione and "Bellavia."

Okay, so I've heard of Chuck Mangione. But I still didn't remember where I'd heard this particular song before. Andrew interjected, "Oh, this is Chuck Mangione? He must be playing his 'flugelhorn' in this piece." Okay, I'll take his word for it; he's the musician in the family, a trumpet player.

It was about 30 seconds later, when I checked the artist and song title again that the light-bulb came on over my head, though it was neither the title or artist that I recognized; it was a portion of the song, with the brass instruments in crescendo that took me "back, back to Culver days."

Back when I was a student at Culver (Culver Girls Academy, Culver, IN), I was part of the Equestriennes Honor Organization. The Equestriennes are a mounted drill team, performing to live music (the Lancer Band, CMA's band honor organization). An Equestrienne must maintain a minimum GPA, meet horsemanship standards, and maintain a certain Citizenship grade. And when I was on the Equestriennes team, the Lancer Band played Chuck Mangione's "Bellavia" (among other songs) for one (or maybe more), of our performances!

I told Livie that Mommy rode her "dancing horsey" to this song at her school! Livie knows "all about" Mommy's "dancing horsies at Mommy's school," because we took her to my 20th Anniversary Alumni Weekend in May 2009, as well as the Horsemanship Reunion Weekend in October 2009. She's seen the Equestriennes perform, and knows that I did that when I was in school. And now, of course, she wants to do it, too. So now she got to hear a bit of the music I rode to, so long ago!

It was nice reminiscing about the good ol' days!

Some photos of my riding with my fellow Equestriennes back in the day (1986-1989):


Here is the Equestriennes' entrance. We usually did this V formation immediately after entering in a column of twos, typically to part of the "Dynasty" nighttime soap music as the music to our opening moves. I'm the third from the right, in the foreground. It looks like I'm riding Black Tux!

We have just saluted, and are waiting for the band to start up so we can go to the next movement. I'm on the very right, atop Black Tux.

Here we are, saluting at the end of the performance.

We are exiting after we've saluted.