Reflections by Gary Hoose – July 2024
Dedicated to Marcus Neiman – Conductor of the Medina Community Band
The Square is the heart of the city. The block was gifted to the community more than two hundred years ago
and was then known as the Village Green. It is now Uptown Park, but “meet on the Square” is sufficient for the
locals. The grassy area, surrounded by beautiful and historic Victorian style buildings, is three hundred feet on
each side, or perhaps just a bit more.
The Gazebo is the heart of the Square. The magnificent columned, arched, scrolled, and cupola-crowned Gazebo
is in the center ofthe grassed area while walkways from the Gazebo spread toward the perimeter along the
cardinal and intercardinal directions.
Majestic oaks, some of which require the arms of three adults to compass them, surround the Gazebo in
concentric rings. Are trees aware? How many musical performances, theatrical presentations, markets, festivals,
and holiday celebrations must they have witnessed? For the Square is always busy, a reflection of a successful
community.
The performers are the heart of the Gazebo. On this summer night the Community Band is performing, not for
the first or the tenth or the hundredth time, but as an honored tradition dating back to a day that the audience,
now arriving as day turns to dusk, had not yet been born.
The concert commences, as always it does, with the Star-Spangled Banner. The audience sings. The Colors are
posted. And we’re off. The conductor welcomes all who attend, provides much-appreciated commentary and
insight on the pieces being performed, and the band begins to distribute feelings and memories through the
music now radiating from the Gazebo. A train sounds in the distance, the clock tower bells chime, a motorcyclist
guns his engine as he navigates the Square, a truck shifts gears while passing through. These too are part of the
music. Once, a truck driver laid on the horn and the conductor immediately announced the note although, at
this remove of time, I don’t recall what it was.
Most of us are in lawn chairs or on blankets but there are a few teens in the southeast part of the square
throwing a football. Young children are unabashedly dancing to the music or supplementing the conductor’s arm
movements with their own. It is darkening now, the stars are peering through the trees, and the lights on the
lamp posts, those sentinels that surround the Gazebo, snap on. The lamp posts, art works in their own right, are
each adorned with an American flag. About the same time, the eyes of a drowsy and nearly asleep young girl
snap open as she sees a firefly for the first time in her life.
The audience is back on their feet again as the penultimate piece, The Stars and Stripes Forever, is played and
The Colors are retired. Once again, the conductor and the band have done a great job and we are well satisfied.
So many things must go right in a society, and in a community, in order to have a peaceful night with an uplifting
musical performance such as we have had and will yet again experience. As such, this band, this concert, and
this setting are a proxy for civilization itself.
The traditional final piece, God Bless America, is being played. On this night, and in this place, He has.
