Hi my name is Helga, as you may already know I am a sousaphone with a very interesting story to tell. This story is about my adventures. And as all good stories do, my writings begin with marching season.
Wow! I can remember being taken out of the case for the first time brand knew and shiny ,it was amazing like a breath of fresh air, everyone was gathered around to see what I looked like and as the case opened up noises of fascination filled the band hall. I was most likely the most beautiful thing any band member at that time had ever seen. The band kid who got to play and march with me was one of the luckiest kids in the world, I was sleek, light weight, and did I mention shiny.
So, my crazy adventure begins. I remember the first time I got dented, I was dropped and it gave me a tiny bit of a dent, it was one of the saddest days in history but thanks to my lucky star know one every saw the dent. Lets just say that dent was probably the most normal thing that has ever happened to me.
Next up on my time line of crazy is ,the finger marks. This is only noticed by those who where me but next time you see me take a close look and you will see the two indents from Tumbleweed over a century ago. At this time I was owned by a huge Russian man name Scott. It was five minutes until we marched onto the field in Denver City, TX and Scott was nervous he didn't realize that his pointer finger and middle finger where digging into my metal. All he could think about was having to play the awful Egyptian music and getting it over with. He soon realized what he had done to me and started crying and ran away. We ended up getting a division two without him.
Next is the arm pit incident. Soon after Scott graduated his sister Okra came to the high school and wanted to play me, its like his family had it out for me. She was much like her brother only bigger and stronger. We made it all the way to Zia and she got very scared she didn't like how many people were there and she started to freak out. She clenched every muscle in her body crushing me between her elbow and he armpit. This was the first time I was really hurt.
Many years later I was looking kind of dirty so I was sent off to get an acid bath. Don't get me wrong I love acid baths but this one didn't go so well. In the middle of my luxurious bath one of the guys in the front of the store accidentally cut of his finger while taking off a timpani head ,so I was taken out of my bath without getting rinsed off. A week later we were marching out side and it started to rain I started to smolder and change color it was awful and it ruined my life. Now I have to live with what we call acid-idus in the instrument world.
One of my more noticeable dents is from a flag accident named S.R. It was an average day everybody woke up for zero hour, came to school, got their instruments, and went out to the marching grid ,no one knew of what lie ahead. We were marching through the show like always and then the unexpected happened, I saw it coming I wouldn't do anything, I was hit with a flag. This incident left me crushed on the left side, broken, and miserable. No one would ever use me again there were two new sousaphones.
I was left in my case for many more years until one day a hopeless pit member wanted to play a wind instrument and out of fate chose the sousaphone. When she picked me up for the first time it was heavenly , I was finally happy. She didn't even shun me for my imperfections, she made it work. And she gave me a name, Helga.
Parts of this story may or may not be true, you decide.