September 23, 2003

Bugling

“Due to the shortage of trained trumpeters, the end of the world will be postponed.”

It was only a graffiti, but being a trumpet player, I took note. I could use a gig, but not that one, thank you.

Then, the other day the news reported that a device has been invented that not only replaces humans, but also lays them to rest. It’s a bugle discretely fitted with a battery-operated conical insert in the bell that plays the twenty-four notes of taps at the flick of a switch. All you do is hold it up to your face, turn it on, and try to look like a bugler — no chops, no breath, only hands.

What brings all this to pass is the plethora of us WW II vets reaching our 80s and dying at the rate of 1,800 per day. By law, we’re all entitled to a funeral with a flag, two flag-bearers, and a bugler. But there’re only 500 official buglers in the entire American military, most of whom are attached to busy post bands. Bugling, once an art for the dying, has become, instead, a dying art.

The digital device was developed under Pentagon guidance by a firm now mass producing it at $525 per. The music reportedly sounds fainter and less crisp than the real thing, but has a haunting faraway quality appealing enough to cause a few to dab their eyes (a sometime accomplishment of my trumpet playing).

Sixty years ago on a naval air station, the PA system woke us up with the scratches of a 78-rpm record that got us out of bed and almost to the flight line before reveille even started.

Sixty years ago!? Maybe I should re-up as a bugler and, in turn, release a real one before the fake bell tolls for me.

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