| Like all overnight successes, it
actually took years. The Optimists actually began life
as a Boy Scout band. A Toronto District scouting
commissioner by the name of Al Baggs woke up one morning
in 1955 and saw the writing on the wall. Most of the
scouts in the band would be aging out of scouting. Baggs
decided that the scout band needed to be reorganized
with a new sponsor to help march into the future.
Baggs was the kind of man everyone would
naturally call “Mister.” He commanded respect and led by
example. To the boys in the corps he was known as Daddy
Baggs and each member believed in him with all his
heart.
He believed strongly in discipline,
hard work and fair play. And he foresaw that drum corps
had an attractiveness to it that went beyond scouting.
So at the end of 1955, he went to the Downtown Toronto
Optimists Club with a proposal. He offered to manage a
new drum corps, which he believed would be a perfect fit
for the club’s objective of providing interesting
activities for boys.
His proposal was rejected. He wrote a
letter asking the club to reconsider. He pointed out
that the operating costs, which seemed to be a concern,
could be controlled with prudent leadership. He also
suggested that a parade corps would generate a lot of
publicity for Optimism and offer musical training as
part of their youth activities.
He cited the example of the Madison,
WI, Optimists who co-sponsored a scout band in which
more than 1,000 boys had received musical instruction
since 1938. The club reversed its decision.
In 1956, Opti-Corps went out into the
world with new uniforms of blue and gold and ended their
first season by winning the novice championship at
Canadian Nationals (the
1956 Championship certificate).
In 1957, they moved up to junior B and
capped the year with another Canadian title. In two
short years, Baggs and his charges had met with nothing
but success and naturally his eye gazed steadily on the
holiest grail of all: the Canadian Junior A
Championships, a perch occupied by the all-powerful
Scout House. The next step would determine whether
Opti-Corps would soar like an eagle or sink like a
stone. And Baggs was not the kind of man used to
sinking.
He realized he could not achieve this
step alone. He had two problems that needed fixing. He
needed more members and more instructors. The answer to
both existed in a high school on the other side of town.
The Danforth Crusaders were already a
junior A corps. They were organized as part of the music
program at Danforth Technical School and they were under
the guidance of a man who had started his drum corps
life playing a plastic bugle. Barry Bell was a quiet,
thoughtful man who was deeply in love with the idea of
drum and bugle corps.
He and his good friend Lorne
Ferrazzutti, were horn and drum instructors for the
Crusaders, both having arrived there from Western
Technical School, where they ran a similar program.
They went to Danforth because they
were given free-rein to develop a drum corps from an Air
Cadet marching band. But, as the saying goes, “nothing
in life is free” and the school administration was
impeding their progress. By the time Baggs came calling,
Bell and Ferrazzutti were more than ready to listen.
Bell signed on with Opti-Corps as
bugle instructor and drill teacher. Ferrazzutti would
instruct drums. Many Crusaders made the leap with them.
At first rehearsal, it looked like a high school dance,
with Opti-Corps members on one side, Danforth Crusaders
on the other, staring at each other, eyes shifting and
darting, wondering who would be the first to ask for a
dance.
Baggs got the dance off on the right
foot by informing this new group that the objective was
to be Canadian junior A champions within two years. This
bold plan was an aphrodisiac to members of both corps.
In 1958, the new Toronto Optimists
made their first appearance at an indoor show at the
University Armouries in Toronto. They wore brand-new
uniforms designed by Bell - green satin blouses with a
white diagonal stripe, black pants with white stripe,
white shoes, a cummerbund of white and green and white
shakos with green trim and white plumes. By the end of
the year, they were Canada’s new champions, achieving in
one year what they’d set out to accomplish in two. |
