NCSSM Oral History - 1985-1986

Innuendo and the Air Bands

View of First Wyche, Spring 1986 Photo by Kyle Barger '86 (click photo for more details)

When I went to my fifth year reunion, I walked up to Bartko to say hello. To my surprise, before he even bothered with smalltalk, he said "Michael Grant... you know, we still laugh about that stunt you pulled..." Background (perhaps unnecessary; sorry): back in '85-'86, it was big fun to have "air band" performances. For the uninitiated, an "air band" takes a popular song and puts on a "live" performance to it---lipsynched vocals, air guitar, air drums, dancing, whatever. We Wyche boys were fond of such performances; we had in our repertoire "ABC (123)" by the Jackson 5, "Sea of Love" by the Heptones/Honeydrippers, and "So Long, Farewell..." from the Sound of Music in our repertoire.

Well it seems one day we had a faculty air band contest, in which each department was expected to put on a performance. Dr. Kolena, the emcee, made some comment at the beginning like "We've decided that, due to budget cuts, we're going to have to ax one of the departments, so whoever finishes in last place will have to go." funny funny, ha ha.

Halfway through the concert, Doc John said something like, "Hey, has anyone seen the history department? They don't seem to be here." Well, so I'm told, I stood up in the middle of what was effectively an all-school assembly and said, "I saw Dr. Wilson and Mr. Litle in a bar together, and I've got the pictures to prove it!"

I'm sure that to everyone on this list it sounds like a simple thing. Indeed, I had long forgotten it, as had nearly all the students at the reunion. But if you asked the faculty at the reunion about it, it was clear that there was something to it that just kept them laughing about it for at least five years... Hmm, I wonder why it struck a chord with them? :-)

- Contributed by Michael C. Grant '86