Connecticut western news., 1911-06-29
THE BAND EXCURSION
When the First Canaan Band Joined in
 for a Picnic at Seaside Park

| When the First Canaan Band Joined in
 for Picnic at Seaside Park
 That first Canaan baud. organized in the late seventies, was one of number of country bands that fiourished in l Litchield county in those times. There were cornet bands in Falls Village, Lakeville. West Cornwall, Kent Cor Warren New Milford, and other towns Somebody conceived the idea. about thirty years ago, that union band excursion and picnic at Seaside Park, Bridgeport, would be just about the proper thing for these musical aggrega tions to indulge in. The idea was communicated to the bands and they all agreed it would be fine thing for the bands, and great day for Bridgeport.
 Accordingly it was arranged that a special train should start from Canaan at an early hour on the day appointed, arriving in Bridgeport at about o'clock. The Canaan band was on hand. arrayed, for uniform effect, in long linen dusters and their stiff military cdps with pom
 
 accompanied by their sweethearts and friends, jubilant over the prospect of seeing their musicians create a sensation in the city.
 The train gathered in the bands as it went along, taking in the last band at Kent which was uniformed" in motley rigs-old band suits, baseball suits, bathing suits, Sunday suits, and regula- tion day clothes. This Kent band, made up of husky young fellows from Kent and Warren seemed irre- sistibly attached to one particular tune in fact, it was circulated through the train that the sole contents of its repertoire was the "Gipsy's Warning" at one point on the downward trip, when the train stopped to cool a hot box, the Kent band got off and played the full repertoire in the woods beside the tracks, and Leader North, of the West Cornwall band, said the train had stopped for the purpose of giving the engineer and fireman an opportunity to hear the ''Gipsy's Warning" which the passengers had been hearing all the way down. But that wasn't so. The Canaan band played itself black in the faceN in it's own car, and there was martial music all through the train.
 Arriving in Bridgeport the band and their friends disembarked, and while waiting on the depot platform. for some- body to form them in parade column for the long walk to Seaside Park, the Kent band struck up the "Gipsy's Warning, '" to the unfeigned delight of the jostling crowd of travellers alighting and em- barking at that busy place, and especi- ally to the unbounded joy of the street arabs who very quickly "got wise" to what was going on, and who were pro- fuse and demostrative ill their express. ions of appreciation. They crowded in around the players crowding them closer and closer to one another and to the depot wall, so that the bass player, who was equipped with one of those old fashioned, over -the-shoulder horns, found himself with the bell of his horn jam med up so tight against the building that every snort of his instrument was smothered against the brick.
 The parade to the park was a pictur- esque one, and something that even Bridgeport couldn't expect to see-and hear-egery day. One typical Bridge port tough remarked to George Oldfeld, of the West Cornwall band, Hello, Hayseed; got the punkins all husked?' "Yes," replied Oldfeld, "and if you'll step this way q little closer I'll make your face look more like punkin jack. lantern than it does now" But the fellow declined the invitation.
 The day was spent in the usual picnic resort fashion. The bands played separately and en masse, and although they had to put up with some raillery from the smart set of the city, they had a most enjoyable day. John Shields, the spoet blacksmith," wrote one of hls characteristic poems on the evens, which had as much fun with the Canaan band as the city critics did, depicting the wonderment of the local musicians on arriving at the "big city" and be, holding the strange things in it. Copies of this poem are still preserved, and The News hopes to reprint it in this column sOon, as reminder of a red-letter day.
 "EVading'' the Inheritance Tax
 They are trying to sheer in New York