|
Brian remembers a wonderful
mechanical genius and great supporter of The Optimists.
When I joined the Toronto Optimists in
1969, there were two brothers in the corps: Kerry and
Dana Burrage. Kerry was a second year soprano player
with the corps and Dana was a rookie tenor drummer. This
story, despite the fact that they’re two good guys, is
not about them, but rather about their father, Ben.
At that time, the corps, like most others, was running
on a shoestring budget and getting the corps from home
to contest and back home was the priority. Equipment
purchases were sometimes few and far between. All this
to say that we made due with what we had. In 1968, our
drum instructor, Ron Kaiser (who was an innovative guy
all on his own) decided to take a couple of bass drums,
flip them on their sides, remove the bottom heads,
secure them together and sling them over some
unsuspecting drummer to lug around for about 11 minutes
at a stretch. He made two sets of these, tuned to match
up with the music and the horn line. You see, tympanis
were mighty expense and it was a lot easier to scrounge
up a few extra bass drums. If two are good, then four
must be better. That’s how many we marched in 1969. It
was really quite interesting. Here were four guys,
carrying eight bass drums, all tuned to different
pitches. We played Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo al a Turk”
as a drum solo that year, all done on these “double
basses”. I would suspect that the four guys who lugged
these things around no doubt are still feeling the
effects today.
If four “doubles” are better, then four “triples” must
be best, right? In 1970, we managed to strap four sets
of three bass drums together. They looked like the
biggest set of triple tenors you’ve ever seen and you
can imagine how much these things must have weighed. At
that time, tympani players were allowed to ground their
drums, so we figured that we should be able to ground
these cumbersome things and not be penalized. I don’t
really know how the rule regarding grounding read at the
time. Now, how to do this. This is where Ben Burrage
comes in. The sets had to be playable while grounded,
ie., standing up high enough to play and easily donned
and doffed. I suspect that permanent or detachable legs
were options that were explored, but Ben had a better
idea. What about retractable legs? So away he went into
his garage or basement and when he emerged, he had the
prototype for a set of legs that would quite easily
swing up, out of the way under the set, while the set
was being carried. These legs were things of beauty. In
the space between the three drums, at the player’s
chest, was a lever, which operated a system of wires and
pulleys, which were attached to the three legs. The legs
were located on the outsides of the two side drums and
the third was located in the middle, at the outside of
the middle drum. By simply grasping the lever and
rotating it 180 degrees, the legs would rotate up out of
the way and when the player wanted to stand them up, he
would do the opposite and slip the harness lugs from the
drum set, leaving the set free-standing. The drummers
were of course, ecstatic. During concert and parts of
some drum solos, they could stand the sets up and not
have to bear all of the weight all of the time. At this
time, harnesses were in their infancy. Most drum lines
still slung all of their drums: snares, tenors and in
many cases tympanis. So, Ben came up with a practical
harness for the “triple” basses, which looks quite
similar to what is currently in use. Whenever we went
anywhere, these contraptions were the subject of much
ogling, ooooohing and aaaaaaaahing.
In the early ‘70s, a strange phenomenon was occurring.
National flagpoles started to get higher and higher and
those carrying them started to hold them out of their
slings, the higher the better. I remember the Kilties’
national flag bearer holding his flagpole in one hand,
high up over his head. We were no exception. In some
cases, size does matter. How do we get higher, longer,
bigger? (Sounds kind of Olympian, doesn’t it?) Ben? It’s
quite simple, really. You start with a piece of square
extrusion about eight feet long and a piece of shiny
pipe about seven feet long. The pipe must fit into the
extrusion. Now it’s simply a matter of attaching yet
another series of wires and pulleys to the two main
pieces so that, when the carrier pulls down on the wire,
the pipe extends out of the extrusion and rises up
another four to five feet. Now, attach the biggest
Canadian flag you can find to it and you have the
longest, highest and baddest national flag in the whole
world. During march pasts (you remember them), Rob
Trimble, who carried our flag proudly for quite a few
years, would extend it and then lift it out of the sling
in two hands, holding it as high as humanly possible. It
was so far up there, that we thought we might have to
install aircraft warning lights on it. It must have been
a good 14 feet from the ground to the top of this thing.
It was sight to behold. All thanks to Ben Burrage.
Not only was he the resident mechanical genius, but at
rehearsals, he sold pop and chips out of the back of his
station wagon and ran the booster table at contests. All
the while, he was a humble man, who took the praise
given to him with humility. He was almost embarrassed by
it and probably didn’t know what all the fuss was about.
I know that these two examples weren’t the only
ingenious gizmos that Ben came up with and I’m certain
that some of my fellow alums have stories about his
ingenuity that I either don’t know about or have
forgotten.
Ben passed away not so long ago. Due to unfortunate
circumstance, I couldn’t make it to his funeral, but I
know that there were many ex Optimists there who harbour
many fond memories of this humble genius. We miss you,
Mr. Burrage. |
