Day Six - Beautiful Rhode Island

So I missed a day or two! It happens when you have a very busy day, and July 3rd was a busy day. We woke up at the beautiful Roger Williams University right on the Narraganset Bay next to the Bay Bridge. I woke up early because we needed to get breakfast started. Breakfast was fried eggs, flank steak, cheese and bagels to make breakfast sandwiches. I used the meat slicer to cut the flank steak into strips and Jay cooked them on the flattop, then we fried eggs individually so the corps could assemble their sandwiches. Served with our usual breakfast items it was a good breakfast for the corps to start a busy day. The weather looked a bit overcast but there was not much humidity and a nice breeze was blowing. They day turned hot, however, but thankfully the breeze never stopped blowing.

This was the best housing site yet, and probably one of the best all tour. We were right there with the corps, so we got to listen and watch them all day. The field they were using had a view of the Narraganset Bay with small and large sailboats navigating around all day. For lunch, we were serving hamburgers, so Dave Marden and I started cooking them about 10 AM. We cooked 320 burgers in about 2 hours. They were served with lettuce and tomato along with a side of baked beans and salad. The corps was really ready for the burgers when lunchtime came because the smoke from cooking them was being blown over toward the practice field the whole time we were cooking, I am sure it was torture for them.

Cooking the burgers for lunch

Digging in to the burgers

After we served and cleaned up from lunch, I got a chance to go over a couple of times and watch the corps in rehearsal, it is really the best part of volunteering. I mean, it is great when the kids come through line and you get to know them and see them enjoy their meal, but when you see these young people from all over America and the World, performing this drill and playing this incredible music, it is just the best thing in the world. While I was watching the ensemble rehearsal, I spoke with a group of athletes from the University who were participating in the summer camps for young athletes run there. I answered their questions about the corps in general and then some questions about how much practice and how long they had been together - they were shocked and impressed about the amount of work and the dedication that clearly showed as they performed.

Dinner that night was chicken drumsticks and mashed potatoes with corn and a salad. Dinner before a show is always a tough meal to plan, many of the members do not like to eat much before a show, and we had a show at Bristol that evening. Still, the spice rubbed chicken was very tasty, but we had a good amount left over - but we would serve it for snack.

The horn line getting ready to warm up at Bristol.

We all headed over to the show in Bristol, RI. It is part of the entire celebration of the Fourth that takes place in Bristol. It has been part of the celebrations for many years and is conducted on the high school grass field. Most grass filds make performing drill this fast much tougher, and this was also the case here. The corps finished first with a score of 82.2, but all felt like they could have done better. I watched from the track and it was a new perspective for me and very enjoyable. 

The food volunteers were able to take the pathfinder back to the housing site so we could get snack ready. We warmed up the left over chicken, pancakes, and a few other items. While some of us did that, a couple of the volunteers went out and purchased 25 gallons of ice cream to be served as well. Snack is normally the end of a day, but today was special because the Corps would be participating in two parades the next day. We still needed to make 400 fluffer-nutter and peanut butter sandwiches for the corps to take with them for the trip back from the second parade they would be in on the 4th. I was spent from being up early and went to bed. The rest of the gang; Jay, Alice, Dave and Cheryl along with the Alcheskeys stayed up and made all of the sandwiches.

Matt