Foreman's top 10 memories of GABBF

Every year's festival is full of memories. For this, the 10th anniversary, we asked festival founder George Foreman to create his own top 10 list of memorable moments. Without further ado, here's the list:

1. Black hawk helicopter fly-over as the Advocate Brass Band played Sousa's ``Stars and Stripes Forever''. It was a great feeling to be leading the band as the roar of the engines could be heard in the distance and began to grow louder and louder. And then, there they were, right overhead at just the right moment in the music. Wow!

2. The Dodworth Saxhorn Band playing while riding an elephant in the parade. That's something you may see only once in a lifetime: an eight-piece brass band riding on a pachyderm. Later, the elephant gave rides on the lawn of the Norton Center. She wore a rut about a foot deep in her circular path. That round depression in the lawn stayed there as a reminder of the elephant's visit for months afterward.

3. The St. Johns Bicycle Band riding down Main Street on high wheel bicycles. They practiced for six months, and the ride lasted only one block and about three minutes. The band members told me it was a pretty frightening experience, but it sure was fun to watch.

4. The ``Ragtime: America's Music'' concert in Newlin Hall at the 1998 festival. Every seat was filled, and the audience and players alike had a wonderful time. That's what music is all about.

5. The first two festival visitors I met on the morning of the first festival. They were two men from Rhode Island. They said they had read about the festival in an Associated Press article in their local newspaper and had been driving for two days to get here. Those two fellows made me think that in putting on the festival, we might just have come up with a pretty good idea.

6. The first year festival visitors signed in from all 50 states. That was three or four years ago. We kept watching the map and counting down the states. We finally hit 50 at around 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. That was a good moment!

7. Tom Poland's fake tuba solo. About four years ago, I had the idea of having the tuba players from all of the different bands at the festival join the Advocate Brass Band to play ``Them Basses.'' For some reason that I can't explain, one of our local bankers, Tom Poland, had decided that he wanted to learn to play the tuba. Tom's wife had given him a used instrument for his birthday. Sure enough, when all the tuba players came up on stage, there was Tom right in the middle of them. As soon as we started, it was pretty clear that Tom couldn't play a note. He happened to be standing beside Sam Pilafian, one of the world's greatest tuba players. Sam later told me that Tom just kept singing and screaming into his tuba. Sam said it was the funniest thing he had ever seen, and that he couldn't play himself for laughing.

8. Marching down the street with the Olympia Brass Band at the end of the parade. We do it every year, but it never fails to make me feel good.

9. Watching the happy faces of the people at the Great American Picnic on Saturday night. It's just hard to imagine a happier group of people. That's the power of music and the company of good friends.

10. My other memorable moment is one that hasn't happened yet. I think it will be something at this year's festival that I will remember in ten or fifteen years and think to myself, ``Boy, wasn't that great!''