Florida's Most Wanted

It was a cool winter's day in Florida. We had just had a full day of excitement exploring the inner workings of one Universal Studios Florida. In a couple of days we would be marching in form down the main drag of Miami in celebration of the Orange Bowl. We were the Pickerington Marching Tigers. A fairly large band, clocking in at almost 300 members. I belonged to the trumpet section. Not the dorkiest section, that honor went to the saxophones (sorry guys), but we weren't as cool as the D.E.A.D.S (do everything as a drum section) either.

The band had a fairly great reputation, having been involved in several renowned parades (Macys, Rose Bowl, Miss American, etc), having played professional football games and accomplishing superior ratings at state competitions several years in a row. That was why what happened on that cool night in Florida shocked an entire city and made the band the laughing stock of an entire nation.

It was the end of the night. We were tired. I found myself exhausted after waiting in such long lines to ride rides that I had already been on before a couple years earlier. E.T. said my name, Doc Brown took me on another crazy time travel affair, the Ghostbusters got slimed. It was your typical day at Universal Studios. The night was over and we all boarded the coach that would take us back to our hotel. We waited and waited...and waited. Why weren't we leaving? Some of the band members weren't back yet. Something felt strange. Many of the students started whispering into each others ears while the others played non-alcoholic drinking games at the back of the bus. But there was definitely something wrong and we all knew it. There were bright red and blue lights coming from the distance. The police had arrived. What were they doing here? We saw them from the window of our bus talking to the directors. I wanted to go back to the hotel but worry started to consume me.

One of the directors came on the bus. He looked at us for a second, his gaze was somewhat abashing. Maybe he was trying to figure out the best way to say what he was about to say. Then he spoke. "You are all probably wondering why the police are here. Apparently, there have been some sticky fingers and they were caught on tape and they are members of the band. They were caught shoplifting from the stores inside the theme park. We have to wait here until all the matters have been settled."

Drama.

I knew that I was not involved in this petty crime but I had to sit there and endure some of the consequences. Naturally, the second those words came from his mouth we all started wondering who the culprits were. Names floated around, names that have since been forgotten, but at the time it was so scandalous. Were we going to be able to march in the parade? Did we all have to return home?

We did finish our trip to Florida. We marched in the parade. It was hot. We found out that Universal Studios was not going to press charges but they wanted as much of the merchandise back as possible. When we returned the entire band was called into a meeting where the directors passed out a small piece of paper to every student and proceeded to ask them to write "yes" or "no" after answering the question "Did you steal from the theme park?" They told us to be responsible for our actions. They claimed to already know who most of the thieves were, but they wanted to see if we would confess our own guilt. That was probably a lie. I remember writing "NO!" with and exclamation point and then scribbled it out and just wrote "NO". I figured the exclamation point was too much...it seemed almost rude. Regardless, several of the students admitted to the offense and were punished by having to serve group detention for several days. It seemed like they were getting away with murder.

The band did end up recovering from the embarrassing blow. Right after it happened we were all over the media. I was told that the directors wanted to keep it under wraps as much as possible but unfortunately word spread, and word spread fast. There was even a night where Jay Leno joked about it on The Tonight Show. During his opening stand up routine he talked about the band stealing from the theme park and said that "it gives a whole new meaning to the band taking the field." But within a a few weeks we stopped hearing the insults from other students and our name was no longer in the media. The next year we were on our way to the Rose Bowl. We had recuperated.

That was 13 years ago. Today the marching band has split due to the construction of a new high school. I think both bands are around 150 members. I don't think that either of them are the powerhouse that we once were when I was in high school but they are still good bands. I wonder if there are still stories floating around amongst them about the year the band stole merchandise from Universal Studios. I wonder if there have been embellishments such as students having to serve prison time or students being expelled from school. It would be interesting to find out. Though perhaps it has been completely forgotten and this post is the first time it's been brought up or even thought about in several years. Either way, the memory is worth keeping.