Jim Tresner
PO Box 70, Guthrie, Oklahoma 73044

Thump! That's usually the first sound you hear. The sound of the bass drum carries farther than the rest of the band, and the thump, thump—thump thump means that a parade has started.

Guthrie, Oklahoma, loves parades. We'll have a parade at the drop of a hat, and the city fathers will lend you the hat to drop. Parades come in all sizes, purposes, and degrees of participation. Some are so large we set up bleachers on the sidewalks and close down the streets. Others attract little attention. But large or small, they have one thing in common—leading the parade is an American flag.

The town must own hundreds of flags. Every few feet, in the sidewalks, are holes in which the city puts flagpoles and American flags for every holiday and special event. It is an impressive sight to see the street lined with flags. But to me, the important one is the first one in the parade, the flag at the head of the band.

More years ago than I care to admit, in my hometown of Enid, Oklahoma, I was in the junior high and then the high school band. And much of that time, I played the bass drum. There is an art to it. Banging the drum is more complicated than it sounds. You don't just hit the thing. There are lots of different thumps, and it's important to produce the right one for the music and at the right moment.

Also, during a parade, when you're in the band, you are paying attention not only to the music but also to the marching and all the other things you have to coordinate. Still, you can't help noticing the people lining the sidewalks. I think it was there, more than anywhere else, that I learned what the flag really means. You learn it by watching the people as they react to the flag as it passes.

The setting was about the mid-1950s, so it had not been that long since the end of World War II. There were many veterans of that war among the people lining the street. Some saluted as the flag passed, some just uncovered their heads. At that time, nearly every man wore a hat. Many dropped tears.

It is an impressive thing for a teenager to see groups of grown men cry. It makes you uncomfortable. You wonder why and what it means, especially when their faces reflect not pain or sorrow, but joy and pride. But even when you don't understand, you know that the sight of that flag has moved them deeply, and, little by little, you come to understand.

It wasn't just the veterans, of course. There were small children, many of whom had little American flags on sticks, which they waved as the band passed. They could not have understood what it meant, but they knew it was something special, and they knew that if they accidentally dropped their flag, the nearest adult would quickly stoop to pick it up and hand it to them again. And there were the ladies. You could see in their faces that the flag was something special to them, too.

Thump—thump, thump thump. You can hear the sound echoing back from the buildings, a sort of syncopated pulse which underlines the snare drums filling in the tattoo of the cadence. That pulse enters the listeners and moves them, as they watch the flag flying in the wind. On either side of the flag marched five students serving as honor guard, with white-painted wooden rifles. Real ones had fired in defense of the flag. Real men had stopped bullets, and fallen, and died. In rain-soaked fields around the world, puddles of muddy water had turned red as failing hearts had pumped the blood, which should have nourished brain and bone, onto the earth. They had gone to fight in the great cause of mankind. And they had done it. And they had won.

It can be a troublesome thing to carry a flag in a parade. You feel a great responsibility to do it right, and yet the wind catches it and can send it streaming out in unanticipated directions. Like a sail, it can almost pull you off your feet when it comes unexpectedly. The cords and tassels have a life of their own, too, and can whip around and strike without warning.

Life is like that; nations are like that. It is hard to keep a steady course and pace. But one of the things you learn in the band is that you must, no matter what it takes. And the men and ladies watching the parade knew that, too.

There's another thing you learn, playing in the band behind the flag. It marks the course. Since you can see it over the heads of the other players and it is in the front of the band (the percussion section is usually somewhere near the middle), you can tell when a turn or corner is coming up by watching the flag. When it turns, you know you had better get ready to turn with your file mates.

The world has changed much since I followed the flag with a mallet in each hand and a bass drum strapped to my chest. Veterans of other wars watch parades, now. We have become, seemingly overnight, an older and somehow sadder people. We have experienced a drug culture unknown in the 1950s. We have divided and reunited since then. Divorce and remarriage have become so common in our culture that, statistically, the child watching the parade with two adults probably has a different last name.

But still the flag is at the front of the parade. Still it marks the course for those who follow. Still the faces of the watchers reflect pride and joy when they see it. And still the eyes of veterans mist as it passes.

And still, to this day, when I hear the thump—thump, thump thump of a bass drum, I go to the window to watch the parade. You come, too!

Jim Tresner is Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute and Editor of the Oklahoma Mason. A frequent contributor to the Scottish Rite Journal and its book review editor, Illustrious Brother Tresner is also a volunteer writer for the Oklahoma Scottish Rite Mason and a video script consultant for the National Masonic Renewal Committee. He is the Director of the Thirty-third Degree Conferral Team and Director of Work at the Guthrie Scottish Rite Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma, as well as a life member of the Scottish Rite Research Society, author of Albert Pike, The Man Beyond the Monument, and a member of the steering committee of the Masonic Information Center. In 1997, Ill. Tresner was awarded the Grand Cross, the Scottish Rite's highest honor. His latest book is Vested in Glory, The Regalia of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.