Travel Blog

When you spend a lot of time at home, anything out of the ordinary catches your attention.

Our balcony abuts a canal which, 50 yards on, runs into the New River. Boats line the canal and, dependably, sail down the river. It makes for a pretty view, but not a particularly musical one. At least not since singing was banned on the evening cruises of the Jungle Queen (apparently because one riverfront homeowner didn't like being serenaded by "Guantanamera," "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," or "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling").

But yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the balcony reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods when I heard the sound of drums. I got up from my chair (palms have now blocked our view from the south end of the balcony) and walked over toward the bougainvillea. The view - water, boats, backyards, ranch houses - contained no new elements.

But the music not only continued, it grew louder. It sounded a lot like a marching band. A few minutes later, the horn section kicked in, and I knew for sure it was a marching band. But there was no place in the scene before me for a band to march. Nothing went less with the watery landscape than the music of marches. I felt like the man in the Thurber cartoon who wakes up in the middle of the night and tells his wife he heard a seal bark.

Some men were sitting on a boat docked in the canal. They paid no attention to the wayward music. It took me back to high school, and Friday night football games. Was I missing fall so much - now after 20 years in Florida - that I was hearing imaginary marching bands?

The thing about marching bands is this: once you hear them, you want to see them. It was extremely frustrating standing there on my third-floor balcony and listening to marches that came out of nowhere. I wanted to see the colorful uniforms, the glistening horns, the concentrated faces, the ballooned cheeks. I thought of getting in my car, driving over the bridge, turning into the neighborhood across the river and hunting down the phantom musicians. But what if they were nowhere to be seen, and people gave me strange looks when I asked them where the marching band had gone?