Tom Robinson has a dream: to build the Turlock Police and Fire
Pipe Band into one of the largest in Northern California.
Tom Robinson has a dream: to build the Turlock Police and Fire Pipe Band into one of the largest in Northern California.
A ragtag band of bagpipers and drummers, the new group savored the chance to play together for a crowd this weekend at the 115th annual Independence Day Parade.
“Everyone’s in their own kilt, and it just provides a great opportunity,” drummer George MacDonald said of the band.
Leader Tom Robinson said pipe bands are an exercise in teamwork. As fun as bagpipe playing is solo, members come together to make “the big sounds you can’t produce on your own,” he said.
Formed just eight months ago by Robinson and sponsored by the Turlock Police and Fire Department, the band performed for the first time together Saturday.
Robinson, a tall, stern Canadian ex-patriot, directed his crew of performers as they wound their way through the staging area on Depot Street to Fourth Street.
“Stay in line, we don’t want you fanning out,” he told the group of about 20 performers, who ranged in age from 9 to mid-60s, as they stomped along between a Marine Corps League Color Guard and the Sport Clips Haircuts float.
They entered the march down Monterey Road with a rendition of “Scotland the Brave,” which is perhaps the most recognizable pipe tune.
“The crowd was great, the community was awesome,” Robinson said, adding that seasoned bagpipers in the group said that this was the best response they’ve gotten from a crowd in all the years they’ve performed.
What are a bunch of bagpipes doing in an Independence Day parade? MacDonald said the traditional Scottish instrument has probably been squeaking and squealing around America since the country’s birth.
“Scottish people were some of the first to come over here. As long as there’s been an America there’s probably been Scots in it,” MacDonald said.
Pipe bands have a long tradition in police and fire, particularly on the East Coast, MacDonald said.
A bagpipe player for 26 years, MacDonald jumped at the chance to be in a pipe band and take up the snare drum, the other integral instrument in a pipe band.
Jonell Hassapakis started playing bagpipes more than 10 years ago after she discovered during a genealogy search how much Scottish ancestry she has.
“I like the camaraderie,” she said.
Bob Hunt, an organizer of the Independence Day Parade, said the Turlock group joined a record number of bands in the parade this year.
“(Bagpipes are) entertaining, and we try to have a real wide spread of entertainment,” he said.
Along with the Celtic music, attendees took in the sounds of the Sandoshin Taiko drummers, a mix of Japanese martial arts and drumming, and various other groups like Live Oak Emerald Regime Band, Oak Grove High School Band and San Jose Metropolitan Band.
Robinson said the couple dozen participants in his band this year were nothing compared with the group he hopes it will become.
“We’ll be three times as big next year,” Robinson said, beaming proudly.
The one downside of playing in a Scottish pipe band in Northern California?
“Wool is nice for the Scottish climate,” MacDonald said. “But the weather in (California) is a little bit less conducive to eight-plus yards of it.”
For more information on the Turlock Police and Fire Pipe Band, visit www.tpfpb.org.
