Fixpert

I was a drummer in the school band from 6th-8th grade. In the summer, we trained for Marching Band. Our band instructor, Mr. Patterson, must have been retired military because that’s how he ran his band. Screw up the song too many times? Do pushups. Talking in class? Pushups. Yes pushups, in front of everyone. And he did not discriminate, girls had to do pushups too (there was a lot of crying happening in this class).

He was a strict disciplinarian, but he was also respected — maybe feared. I never saw him laugh or smile in in the 3 years that I was in band. But he made a really strong impression on me. With teachers or authority figures like that, I seemed to naturally slip into a subservient / co-dependent role with them and wanted desperately to be noticed by them and to please them. Kind of sick. By the way, Mr. Patterson always reminded me a little bit of an Otter Pop:

Every week, we’d practice our rudiments at home, playing along to a cassette tape (rudiments are basic types of rolls for drums — like the 5 stroke roll, 7 stroke roll, etc). At the end of the week, we’d have to perform our latest rudiments on our own in front of the whole class. Then, Mr. Patterson would rate our performances and order our seating positions based on who did the best. I was always second to this dude, Andy, who continuously held the coveted first chair. I wanted first chair more to impress Mr. Patterson than anything else, I don’t think I ever got it though.

Anyway, Mr. Patterson was getting us ready for our first March and we were talking uniforms. We wore all white, with maybe a red hankerchief around our necks (I guess that would make it a neckerchief?) and white shoes. We needed to be sure our outfits matched, but it was up to us to go out and buy this stuff ourselves, most of these kids were pretty poor though. And you know, middle school, you get teased for being poor and wearing ratty clothes.

So Mr. Patterson is describing the kind of shoes we need to get, and he’s a little older and admitting he’s not hip to the brand names. He says “Alright this weekend, you need to get your shoes, they need to be white sneakers, I don’t know what you call them…” and then someone said “Maypops”. Everyone knew to not laugh out loud or it would blow the joke, so there was a stifled snicker and then Mr. Patterson goes “Ok, yeah your Maypops, go and get your Maypops this weekend…”

Maypops is a term for crappy cheap shoes that you would only wear if you didn’t have any money. I think this might be a Southern thing, but for the rest of the Marching season, Mr. Patterson always referred to our shoes as Maypops and we would always get a secret silent chuckle out of getting one over on Mr. Patterson.