Welcoming the President

Welcoming the President

I was the band director in the mid-sixties at Macon County High School in Lafayette, Tennessee. We and approximately fifty other middle Tennessee high school bands were to have the rare opportunity of welcoming the President of the United States to Tennessee!

President Lyndon Johnson would be “reviewing” the bands of Middle Tennessee on his way into to town from the airport in Nashville. I met with the publisher of The Macon County Times and it was reported that we were going to play Castle Gap March, a selection of great significance to the President; since it was named for a landmark in west Texas.

We boarded the buses at dawn in great high spirits and made our way to Murfreesboro Road in Nashville. As the sun rose it turned into a clear but icy-cold day. As we stood awaiting Lyndon’s “review” the wind grew stronger and the temperature descended steadily. The wind whipped the brand new flags that had been donated by the Lafayette Jaycettes. Tears began to stream from our eyes, and our cheeks and noses were becoming numb!

We waited,.................. and waited, .....................................................and waited in our sparking new uniforms until we were all thoroughly chilled. The barelegged majorettes could do little more than hug themselves and bounce up and down trying to stay warm. The increasing wind played havoc with our new flags and the color guard was forced to re-furl them. We turned our backs to nature’s assault and stamped our feet trying to regain feeling.

Lyndon was late,......................... very late! Then very faintly in the distance we heard a shrill siren, then another and another until there must have been sixty sirens all rising and falling in pitch at different times. Motorcycles and police cars were zipping by at what appeared to be sixty miles per hour, conducting their siren contest! The Lincoln convertible with the president waving his Stetson was right in the middle of the melee.

We barely had time to get our tribute started when Lyndon was gone over the hill. The enterouge went by so fast he never heard the first note of Castle Gap, nor did he see how attractive our majorettes were, nor did he enjoy the beauty of our crisp, new uniforms. Castle Gap March was carried on the wind far, far away to somewhere south of Murfreesboro Road.

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Well those were different times, and seeing "The President" was a really big deal then. It wasn't long after that, that Lyndon picked up his beagle hound by his ears, and later on showed his gall bladder scar to one and all. I, for one, by then had already seen all I wanted of Lyndon Johnson.