Thursday, August 29, 2013

Re: [gatortalk] Another Reason to Cheer this Saturday

Congratulations Zeb!

My son Shane marched as a freshman, carrying the tuba (sousaphone actually - another instrument with a marching alter ego). Coincidentally, when they made the outline of the state, his position was just about where he grew up! We even got a good close up of him on TV during the Sugar Bowl pregame that year. I hope Olivia has as much fun as Shane did.

By the way, you can watch the band do their run through on Norman Field first thing in the morning. The top deck of the parking garage provides an excellent viewpoint!

Steve M.




Gatortalk has been around for quite a while and so have most of its members. While I don't date back to the Prodigy days, the last 20 or so years in this forum have been a pleasure and part of my life.

In early 1995, I had the pleasure of announcing the birth of my daughter Olivia. This before the days where dads spent the nights in the hospital room with mother and child, so I was at home alone and Gatortalk seemed like a good place for a birth announcement. I think it may have been the first, but I missed a few years, so who knows.

In fact, my online handle grew out of that pregnancy. If our child were a girl, her mother would choose the name. A boy, and the choice were mine. My top three were Shane Matthew, Zebulon, or Jacob ("Jake"). When given my choices, my wife looked at me and said that I had better name my online name "Zebulon," because she would never let me name a child that.

Over the years, Olivia has become an accomplished musician, and thankful that she was never named Zebulon. She has been a member of the All County Band and Youth Philharmonic on the French Horn, as well as trumpet in the Jazz band. In her senior year, she became Drum Major at Naples High (home of Gators Nick Alajajian and Buddy Schulteis). A picture is here:



Ultimately, she graduated high school with a 5.2 GPA, had the third highest SAT in her high school class, and chose to attend Florida; that gives an idea of the caliber of UF students these days.

This August, she enrolled at UF. The last few weeks before enrolling were full of practicing "Orange and Blue," "Jaws," "We Are the Boys" and the UF alma mater on the French Horn. Luckily, as any good father should, I had multiple versions of each saved to my music library for her listening pleasure.

Last week, she auditioned for the band, and made the marching team as a Freshman. I hadn't realized that the entire band doesn't march at halftime, apparently marching as a true freshman is a bit of an honor. Here is a shot:

When the band spells out "Gators," please look for her; she will be at the top of the "a."

I'm not quite sure of her position in the other formations, but was happy to learn that she can now play "You Can Call Me Al."

Be sure to watch the band, and give an extra holler for the French Horns!

-Zeb

P.S. Technically, the marching version of the French Horn is called a Mellophone. The bell of the horn faces forward instead of up, and it is not played with a hand in the bell. So, if you would rather show your support by being "mellow" for the game (you know who you are), that would be fine as well!

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