Steven: Hey guys, Paul sent me another email that I’ll share with all of y’all.

Sorry for the delay… I’ll have to send you some of the “history” as it comes back to me. I started a group on Facebook called “Auburn University Band Trombone Alumni” which you are welcome to join and pick the brains of the (seven so far) guys on there. (Why don’t any Trombone babes keep up with this stuff?)

First things: The BodieDome is what we called the practice field. There used to be a sign up there naming it the Bodie Hinton Practice Field, or something to that matter. I don’t think many people outside the tbone section called it that, but all the EighthP’s referred to it that way. We called it that ALL the time… I’m surprised that died out, but then again no one there now marched under Bodie Hinton.

I created the original Holy Bone by crushing my Conn student horn that fell apart during practice the DAY OF the Iron Bowl in 1989, underneath my 4×4 at the Trombone Party in 1990. I had my Rat sit on the hood of the truck while driving over it. Someone took pictures and I wish I had them! I mounted the HolyBone to the wall of my apartment, and we’d play with it while writing the 8thP’s throughout 1994. After graduating, I bought a set of tree-climbing spikes and climbed about 60 feet up one of the giant pine trees at the West end of the field and nailed it up. I almost fell and did manage to lose a screwdriver that I had intended to use to screw the holybone up there. Within a month, a storm blew through and knocked it out of the tree, so one of the current tboners saved it for me and I went back up the next year with a cordless screwdriver and screwed it into the tree. My wife was pregnant at the time and not very happy that I was risking my life again, but it was up there for GOOD! Somewhere I have a picture of it mounted up there but I haven’t found it yet. As it stayed up there it got darker and darker until you couldn’t see it unless you knew what to look for. The last time I was on campus was about five years ago and I think the tree it was on had been cut down. I’ve look at the picture of the field on the auburn.edu campus map and I can see some trees but not the one I think it was one.

In 1992 three other guys and I made a scaled-up trombone out of paper-mache and aluminum foil we called the MegaBone. We carried it up to the field while the Alumni were practicing and paraded it around the field singing “Trombones” and “T-R” and then retired it to my house, only to be sacrificed to a Trombone Patry bonfire later. The MegaMouthpiece is still out there, with Steve Kratt, who graduated in 1992.

I did find the 8thPs and I’ll figure out a way to get them all to you - its about 50meg, too big to email. Most of it is inside jokes from the time they were made, but we did try to put some universal Trombone Humor in them. They used to only be made for the trip to the Iron Bowl, but after I got involved we started doing them for almost every game. I even sold ads one year, until we made an issue which insulted then-band director Tim Kelley, which caused Johnny V to call me into his office and threaten me with the Academic Discipline Committee. He had the gall to tell me that the 8thP’s USED to be brought to him for approval before they were given out - HAH! For almost every game of 1992 and 1993 I stayed up all night long getting them written and copied in that one night, JUST in time to sprint across campus from Kinkos to the Eagles Cage, and then pass them out during the game. The first five minutes of the games had everybody bent over reading when they weren’t playing!

I know that Dr Good took away the “Crouch” while marching into the stadium and the sprint to the front of the band, high-fiving back to place as soon as we got inside the fence. (The tubas “took the hill” as their thing). That’s too bad. I guess rowing with the trombones is gone, too. Parades were always fun because we were showing off to the kids watching.

Steven: Okay, so to clear up a few things, they still do the “crouch”, which we now call the Heisman I believe.  Also, the tubas no longer take the hill, because the TBNs circle up up there.  The trombone rowing is still alive and well, along with various other horn rocks during the parades. The high fiving is still AWOL, though.

Oh yeah, you left off “Eat a booger” from the songs!

Eat a booger, eat a booger, eat eat eat
Nostril meat!
Pick it, lick it, flick it on a grill
Yes indeed you’ll get your fill!

Sounds goofball, now, but was great fun then.

The verses after “Trombones” in the Amazing Grace version, when I was there was “bald head” for Dr Vinson, “Big Nose” for Marc Goffi, section leader for a bagillion years, “She’s Twelve” for  David “Chuck” Dunn, who made the mistake of admitting to dating a 12-year-old during the “Most Embarrasing Moment” question of the 1st Trombone section rehearsal  (Does that still happen?), “Old Man” for me, since I was 27 when I graduated the second time around, in 1994.

Steven: Heck yes the most embarrassing moment question of the First Sectional still happens.  Good times.

Wow I took too much time. I’ll figure out a way to send you the 8thPs, but I’ll attach one to this.

8th Position: Intro to Band (1993)

Steven: Thanks again Paul!  Oh and he also sent me this email soon afterward.

I just made an online donation to the band program, and since there was a place to make the donation in honor of someone I made it in honor of “Shane Glenn.”

Thought you’d get a kick out of that.

-Paul