An elaborate volunteer network of parents helped Max Jones run the Marching Minutemen. So many men wanted to join the Band Dads, the group that built props for the shows, that some wouldn’t be called up from the waiting list until after their own children had graduated.

the community

“Early on the morning of the Concord Invitational, ten band dads met at their usual booth-plus-a-table in a corner of Gramma’s Restaurant, “where two eggs is always four.” It had been been an inventive week. They’d fashioned four-to-two-inch PVC reducers from a plumbing supply store for the high-brass mutes. When Max had determined that the large painted surface of the tarp glared too harshly under the lights, they’d repainted it and sprinkled fifty pounds of kitty litter onto it to soak up the tackiness. They wouldn’t know whether the new paint job had done the trick until the Marching Minutemen’s performance at the end of the evening.

That morning around the table, head band dad Mark Tack steered the conversation to the day’s’ task list. ‘Listen up! I’m only going to say this six times!’ Pushing aside empty plates and cups of coffee and using napkins as stand-ins, the dads debated whether the two sections of the tarp should be fan-folded or rolled up starting from one sideline. Half a football field’s worth of canvas was both heavy and unwieldy, and at the district contest in two weeks, the tarp would become part of the band’s time allotment. The dads would be under serious pressure to move it on and off the field quickly. At three o’clock that morning, Darrel Yoder had sent around a long email in support of one folding method that made no sense to him when he got up two and a half hours later.”