I have one of those basements in my home that, if one looks closely at the pockets of junk possessions stored on shelves and in the corners, stories will slowly emerge.
The other night I found the trombone I played through middle school and high school. The case is decorated with bumper stickers that I collected throughout my four years playing in the Maize High School marching band, concert band, jazz band and pep band.
As I looked at the stickers I laughed as I remembered the different stories behind each addition. And I dwelled briefly on how each sticker represents some attempt to outwardly define my personality and shifting sense of self-expression.
Take for instance these three stickers on the bottom of one side of the case. I was never really particular about my shoes in high school. I wore vans sneakers because they were wider than most than most athletic shoes and they were really durable. I wasn’t a skateboarder, but I clearly didn’t mind if others thought I was.
The Safety Orange sticker was added as if to say, “Yeah, I like local music.” Safety Orange was a band headed up by the mythic Steve “Gooding” Gooding. I “worked” for about six months with a Wichita band called Shaft. Safety Orange and Shaft played a number of shows together in that time including a CD release party for Safety O at The Big Fish–a club that was recently demoed to make room for the new Intrust Bank Arena in downtown Wichita.
When the history of Wichita hockey is written (note to self: begin drafting a proposal to write the complete history of amateur and pro-am hockey in Wichita, KS) Triple Crown Hockey will likely be listed in the footnotes somewhere. In the mid-1990s hockey was really taking off in the Air Capital. Ray Cody, a local businessman and proponent of youth hockey, launched a roller hockey league in a spare parking lot at the Wichita Municipal Water Authority building. This was a matter that eventually came before the Wichita City Council because it was unclear if Ray even had permission to set up shop in the spare lot.
Before the city of Wichita got involved Triple Crown Hockey, a national youth sports organization hosted a weekend-long tournament that attracted teams and players from entire central plains region. What was cool about this tournament is that the local teams from Wichita had a chance to really compete with players from other parts of the country and we found that we could actually hang.
The other side of the case seems less exciting, but I’ll note the KICT 95 sticker. I know I went through several “favorite” radio stations in my youth, but T-95 still stands as one of my favorites that I listen to whenever I’m back home. I remember once calling in to the station–OK so I called in more than once–to play “name that tune.” I lost to another caller, but the thrill of hearing my voice on the radio was simply electric.
Ghosts exist. I don’t necessarily mean floating figures stuck somewhere between life and death haunt us mortals. But the ghosts of our past do amble around us, and it is interesting to take a closer look to see who we have become.