If you ever get a chance to perform with the Des Moines Symphony, do it — especially if you play the cannon.
I got to fire one a few years ago at the annual Yankee Doodle Pops concert at the Capitol. I’d gone out to Camp Dodge a few days earlier to interview the Iowa National Guard crew who sets up the massive cannons each year for “The 1812 Overture.” The officer may have been kidding when he invited me to help, but I took him at his word and brought along my mom. We each were issued our own “instrument” and a pair of earplugs. We waited for the cue, yanked the cords and — ka-BOOM!
It was awesome. To this day, “first chair Howitzer” is still the highlight of my musical résumé.
The upcoming holiday might be even noisier this year. Americans will mark the country’s 250th anniversary in all sorts of creative ways, including several you’ll find in the pages ahead and online at dsmmagazine.com.
If you’d like to go deeper, I recommend “The American Revolution” docuseries that Ken Burns and his team released late last year. Alongside the textbook stories you might remember from school, it spends time with ordinary people who had to decide what kind of country they wanted to build and what sacrifices that would require. The series reminded me that America has always been a work in progress, a topic of constant debate among imperfect people.
Which makes moments of shared joy on a picnic blanket at an outdoor concert all the more worthwhile.
At dsm, we don’t cover the daily thrum of politics. Plenty of excellent journalists already do that. Instead, we explore the ways people build meaningful lives here in greater Des Moines — the restaurants where we gather, the artists who inspire us, the traditions that bring us together and make Iowa feel like home.
Thomas Jefferson encouraged “the pursuit of happiness” so much that he mentioned it right up top in the Declaration of Independence. We take that pursuit seriously, too.
And if it occasionally involves blasting a cannon next to 100,000 people? Even better.
