In the mid-seventies I was in the West Seattle High Stage Band. In addition to school assemblies, and the occasional jazz competition, we played at several other regular events during the year.

The most numerous were the Chieftain's home games (this was when Seattle University had a basketball team). The games were held at the Seattle Center Arena. It was an exhilarating experience to play in that big auditorium surrounded by thousands of screaming fans. Another regular performance occurred during summer break, when we'd play at the King County Fair in Enumclaw. That was an experience of a different sort, playing in the open air surrounded by thousands of screaming pigs, goats and chickens. Another job we had during the summer was the annual high school cheerleader conference at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. That was an experience of a really different sort, playing while surrounded by a thousand screaming cheerleaders.

So which of these events do you think the band enjoyed most? Now keep in mind we're talking about 17 and 18-year-old teenage boys. Let's just say I whipped every last drop of speed out of the 350 horses of my '66 Ford, as we dashed over the pass to Ellensburg, the guys in the back seat hanging the occasional BA on the way. For those of you who don't have a copy of a 1970's dictionary, that means we mooned our way over Snoqualmie.

Once we reached Ellensburg we were given digs in one of the dormitories that had been vacated for the summer. We'd have the rest of that first day off, and as the afternoon wore on all the guys in the band descended into a sort of debauched cheerleader frenzy. Groups of us wandered the campus in the dry summer heat, trying to flirt with the assorted clusters of roving cheerleaders. There were literally hundreds of them in their cheerleader outfits, pom-poms galore everywhere you looked.

It was teenager's Shangri-la. But it was a well chaperoned and segregated Shangri-la. For each night the cheerleaders would be ensconced in their own dormitory tower. Like hungry wolves we'd circle the grounds below, calling up to the goddesses in their bower on high. Hundred's of Rapunzels sticking their heads out windows so near, yet so far; taunting us, but not daring to let their hair down.

The next day we'd play for the cheering competitions. It was hard work - hard trying to keep our eyes on the sheet music. It was a great incentive to memorize the music, for not only did that free up the eyes, it impressed those girls who actually watched us play. It didn't, however, impress our conductor. For some strange reason he felt we should be watching him. Don Weaver was a great music teacher and conductor, but he just couldn't compete with a thousand cheerleaders.

Looking back on those trips they've taken on a surreal aspect. Like in the movie Abbot and Costello Go to Mars, where Bud and Lou land on Venus by mistake, and encounter a bevy of space gals, I, too, had made a journey to a Venusian otherworld. I had visited planet Pom-Pom, population 1,000; a thousand aliens that were one with the Borg - but in a good way. They were delightful, cheering (and cheerful) girls, whose life force came together to create a single massive entity dedicated to 'School Spirit,' something totally alien to me.

Like Bud and Lou I managed to return home, though for the first few days afterwards the sunsets over the Olympics seemed to pale in comparison to the delights of Ellensburg. Occasionally, clumps of clouds hanging low over the Olympics would be backlit to multiple colors by the setting sun. I'd see these giant pom-poms in the sky as a message from that otherworld. "Come back...come back.' But I'd resist their siren song, and gradually the memory faded. I'd return to normal-until the next year.

Dear reader, due to the recent controversy regarding hyped up memoirs, I feel duty bound to inform you that in the above story, other than the giant pom-poms in the sky, what you've read was true. As for those giant pom-poms - I needed a good ending. Hmmmm...on second thought, forget I told you that. Maybe I'll get on Oprah!

Marc Calhoun writes regularly in these newspapers and can be reached at wseditor@robinsonnews.com