Salvation Army Baltimore Hampden Corps, History of Dan Ross

Trust In God
When from sin's dark hold thy love had won me,
And its wounds thy tender hands had healed,
As thy blest commands were laid upon me,
Growing light my growing need revealed.
Thus I sought the path of consecration
When to thee, dear Lord, my vows were given;
And the joy which came with full salvation
Winged my feet and filled my heart with Heaven.

Refrain

By the love that never ceased to hold me,
By the blood which thou didst shed for me,
While thy presence and thy power enfold me,
I renew my covenant with thee.

Refrain

But my heart at times with care is crowded,
Oft I serve with weak, o'erladen hands,
And that early joy grows dim and clouded
As each day its heavy toll demands.
Have I ceased from walking close beside thee?
Have I grieved thee with an ill-kept vow?
In my heart of hearts have I denied thee?
Speak, dear Lord, O speak and tell me now.

Refrain

By the love that never ceased to hold me
In a bond nor life nor death shall break,
As thy presence and thy power enfold me,
I would plead fresh covenant to make.
From before thy face, each vow renewing,
Strong in heart, with purpose pure and deep,
I will go henceforth thy will pursuing,
With my Lord unbroken faith to keep.

Refrain

Shepherd Hear My Prayer

Unto thee will I cry,
Shepherd, hear my prayer!
Poor and needy am I,
Shepherd, hear my prayer!
Deep is calling unto deep,
Rugged are the heights, and steep:
Guide my steps and keep;
Hear, O hear my prayer!
Hear, O hear my prayer!

Where the tempest is loud,
Shepherd, hear my prayer!
'Mid the darkness and cloud,
Shepherd, hear my prayer!
Let me hear thy voice afar,
Coming with the morning star,
Hear, O hear my prayer!
Hear, O hear my prayer!

Let the foe not prevail,
Shepherd, hear my prayer!
My resources would fail,
Shepherd, hear my prayer!
Order all my steps aright,
Carry me from height to height;
Yonder shines the light!
Shepherd, lead me there!
Lead me safely there!

At Peace With God

At peace with God! How great the blessing
In fellowship with him to be,
And from all stains of sin set free;
How rich am I such wealth possessing!

Refrain

My soul has found a resting place.
And I am now, through heavenly grace,
At peace with God, at peace with God.

The fear of death has gone forever,
No more to cause my heart to grieve;
There is a place I dare believe,
In Heaven for me beyond the river.
In heaven for me beyond the river.

Refrain

At peace with God! No change can harm me
Whichever way my course may run:
One wish alone, God's will be done.
I seek, since I have known his mercy.

Refrain

This is one of my all time favorite band pieces. It is played by non-Salvation Army bands frequently. The words of these songs are burned in my memory because we also sang them in the Seattle Temple Songster brigade. We played this meditation in every Salvation Army band I was ever in including the Baltimore Area Band. In Baltimore, this was our best piece. If you would like to hear the songster rendition of Shepherd Hear My Prayer by the Harlesden Songster Brigade entertwined with a great sermon click on General Osborne.

 So I left Seattle at the beginning of September, 1967, to go on active duty with the US Army. Due to my delayed enlistment guarantees, I had been in the reserves all summer and entered active duty as an E2 instead of an E1. I think the pay was $25 per month. A significant drop from my full time Boeing pay. During Basic Training, I had no contact with my family or Corps except by mail and one visit when my mother came to visit with the Seattle Temple Corps officer. On Sunday mornings, those going to church would form up and march to the nearest protestant chapel. The Catholics would form up and march to the nearest Catholic chapel. On the way, we passed the Mormon chapel. Our drill sergeant said, "What's this LDS building? Isn't that some kind of drug?" He was mixing the LDS with lsd.

After Basic Training, it was off to "Advanced Individual Training." I headed out to Ft. Holabird, Maryland, to attend the United States Army Intelligence School (USAINTS). For quite awhile, I was on "casual" status waiting for my classes to start. I looked up The Salvation Army Corps in Baltimore. I essentially had three choices, so I took a bus ride to look them over. I had been living in the cleanest city in the USA and was shocked to see people throw chewing gum wrappers on the floor of the bus. The bus from Ft. Holabird to downtown Baltimore went through an area called "The Strip." This area was loaded with girlie strip clubs and bars. Pretty soon the bus passed near the first corps. I got off and went and looked at the building. It was downtown and a sort of "store front" place. I could look through the window and it seemed there was peeling paint in places.

My home corps was downtown, but it was in pristine shape compared with this. I then went to another corps. I had totally forgotten this corps until I started writing this page. As I recall, the corps was near a park, there is a vague memory of "Germantown" or something. I actual ate a meal at this corps which included, appropriately, German potato salad. The people there were nice, but the outstanding feature of the corps was the toilet. I was sitting there intently listening to the sermon when someone in the congregation stood up, walked across the platform and went through a door. I few minutes later there was the roar of a flushing toilet and the person came through the door and went back to his seat in the congregation. This was a tad too much for me, so I decided to try the Hampden Corps which was the furthest from Ft. Holabird.

 I got on the bus and went to look at the other corps named the "Hampden Corps." There was no choice as far as I was concerned. The Hampden Corps was in a residential neighborhood and it had a lawn. It was a nice looking building so I decided to try it. On Sunday, I went to the Hampden Corps. I was welcomed immediately. There was no band so I asked if they had a band. I was told that the downtown corps had a band and most of the Divisional Headquarters staff attended the downtown corps. I never set foot in that building, but I met a lot of the officers and some of the members who attended there.

By the second week, I had been adopted by the people of the Hampden Corps. I met Don and Mary Burlock and we became very close friends. Don was a fantastic piano player. There was another great piano player in the division and every time she and Don got together he would learn a new chord progression or arpeggio. He then would try each thing out with a whole bunch of hymn tunes. He had the most irritating habit though. He would start a tune, work in the new chord progression or whatever, and as soon as he heard it he would stop and say something like "Did you hear that? Isn't that great?" and then he'd go on to something else without finishing the piece. That just drove me nuts. Don worked for Western Union downtown and during his lunch breaks, he would run into the nearest store which sold pianos and play their pianos. They loved him and had a standing offer to pay him to play to demonstrate their pianos. He never took them up on it though.

After Vietnam, when I was stationed at Fort Bragg, NC, I met up with Don and Mary frequently. Then I was transferred to West Fort Hood, Texas. I saw them again several years later when the Divisional Band met in Dallas for the New Years service and the Cotton Bowl Parade. Dan and Mary were the Corps Officers of the Dallas Temple Corps.

All of the people at the Hampden Corps were wonderful. I settled into a routine there. Don and Mary would invite me to lunch on Sundays. Don and Mary had a strange little car called a DKW. I think it was some kind of Volkswagen. It was great for Baltimore because it was so small. For some reason, I feared that car, but I went a lot places in it. We went out to lunch frequently and the place I remember most is called "Friendly Farms." To get there, you take the highway that runs along the Maryland / Pennsylvania border until you are seven miles south of York, Pennsylvania, there on a hill is the farm with its stark white buildings. They sell the biggest best chickens I have ever eaten.

One night, the corps officer offered me a ride home to Ft. Holabird. "The Bird," as it's called was just outside the city limits. On the way was a hamburger restaurant named "Gino's." The corps officer asked if I wanted a hamburger so we stopped and I got a hamburger and he paid for it. He didn't eat, but he started talking. The next Sunday night, he did the same. We stopped at Gino's and he bought me a hamburger. The hamburgers were great, and he talked. The third Sunday night of this occurrence I was sitting there eating my hamburger and he was talking. Finally, I said to him, "Can you really afford to buy me a hamburger? I have relatives who are officers, and I know how much you get paid." He then told me it was worth it for him to buy me a hamburger because I was a good listener and he needed someone to talk to. That became the rest of my Sunday routine. He would buy me a hamburger and just pour out his soul to me. He talked about all of his successes in the Salvation Army. He told me about his failures. He told me about his aspirations and about all of the things he wanted to do.

It was soon Christmas time and everybody at the spy school was offered leave to go home to their families. I decided I didn't want to ruin my first Christmas away from home by going home. I then figured out that since the whole school was closing down for Christmas and New Years, I would get the time off any way. I stayed at the Bird. The corps officers found out I wasn't going home and invited me to their house for Christmas dinner. I was wandering around the kitchen on Christmas day when I saw the officer's wife open the oven. Suddenly, she exclaimed "Oh no!!" I said , "What's the matter?" She said "I've cooked a smoked turkey." I asked, "What's wrong with that?" She said, "I've also cooked a ham." Once again, I said, "What's wrong with that?" She asked if I knew what a smoked turkey was and i told her I had no idea what a smoked turkey was. Then she told me that it tasted just like a ham. About that water began dripping on her head. We looked at the ceiling and the light fixture was full of water and it was running out onto the floor. Water had leaked out of something in the upstairs bathroom and it was flooded. She thought the whole day was a disaster, but I really enjoyed everything. i had a great time that Christmas and saved all of my leave time while getting all of the time off.

During this winter I also did some flying. There was a little airport just north of Baltimore where I could rent a Cessna 150. It's the first time I had ever been on a runway that had ice on it. I took a check ride and passed with flying colors so they rented their plane to me. When I rolled out to the runway, I had to try to get all three wheels on dry patches of concrete avoiding the ice in order to do the engine run up without actually taking off prematurely. After the run up, I would make the circle and head down the runway. I managed to take off and land on this icy runway without any mishaps. I frequently flew around Chesapeake Bay and got a lot of neat pictures of ships farms and general kinds of things. In the winter time, Chesapeake Bay can be very dangerous. I had a little black radio which could receive aircraft and maritime frequencies and during this winter "vacation" I would lay there on my bunk and listen to tugs going to the rescue of boats in storms and ice.

 Someone at Divisional Headquarters found out I was a musician and invited me to play in the Baltimore Area Band. The story of my life is that I get there just after or leave just before things really are exciting. The Baltimore Area Band had been a great band, but the bandmaster was a great musician who had left to go to Asbury College. He was followed by on officer who was then transferred to become the Divisional Commander of the National Capital Division. Some officers had also been transferred. They had been playing Festival Series music including the march "Praise." The band was left with no Euphonium player and no bandmaster. It was completely depleted. The Salvation Army had been given a bunch of high school band uniforms so the Baltimore Area Band did not wear Salvation Army uniforms. We wore old but pretty good looking high school band uniform jackets which were bright blue and our regular navy blue uniform pants or skirts. We were pretty active.

One night, I was getting ready to go to a band concert when I was called to the Company Commander's office at the spy school. The First Sergeant started chewing on me pretty bad. To make a long story short, he wanted to know why I was leaving the post without a pass. I told him that I had been told they were making a pass up for me. He ordered me to be confined to the barracks until he could figure out what to do with me. I then asked him if he could delay the punishment to start the next day because I had an important engagement that night. He wanted to know what was so important and I think I recall seeing a vein in his forehead start to pop. The CO was in the office behind the First Sergeant carrying on a lively conversation. I explained to the First Sergeant that I was in a Salvation Army band and we had a concert that night. I told him I played Euphonium and I was the only one in that position and if I didn't show up, the band would have to cancel the concert. The conversation in the CO's office had suddenly stopped. The First Sergeant said, "Captain, did you hear that?" A voice came from the other room, "Yes." The First Sergeant said, "What do you want me to do?" The Captain replied, "Type him up a pass right now. Punish him tomorrow." I was out the door in three minutes. The next day I was confined in the orderly room for eight hours where I was forced to shoot pool and watch TV all day. What a life.

That night we met the National Capital Divisional Band of The Salvation Army in Prince Georges County, Maryland, for a two band concert. Some of the musicians in the National Capital Divisional Band were also in the U.S. Marine Corps Band, the U.S. Navy Band, the U.S. Air Force band and the U.S. Army band. Steve Bulla played in that band. He was a staff arranger for the U.S. Marine Corps Band and has written tons of Brass Band music for The Salvation Army. That night, I heard the best bass player I have ever heard in my life. Campbell Robinson, the bandmaster of the National Capital Divisional Band announced that there was a euphonium solo on the program, but that morning his soloist called and said he had to go on a trip with the US Air Force Band. He then called the Bass player and asked him to play the solo on his tuba. A big guy with a Mirafone four rotary valve tuba stood up from the back of the band and went up and played the Euphonium solo accompanied by the band. It was flawless. He was absolutely fantastic! I'm talking better than Leslie Condon for those of you who knew Condon or ever heard him play. This tuba player played in the US Army band. He was a staff arranger for the U.S. Army Band. These guys were professionals and they were a tremendous addition to the National Capital Divisional Band.

Our little band did very well even though we had no bandmaster. Our Divisional Youth Secretary and his wife both played in the band. This was the first band I ever played in with a woman playing the Tuba. She was really good. Our little band sounded exceptionally fine. I think it was the Divisional Youth Secretary who stood up in front of the band at about the first practice I attended and told us that he was sorry we had lost our bandmaster and we couldn't let anybody else lead the band. He said he was probably the least important instrumentalist and, since we pretty much only had one player on each part, he was the most expendable. He told us that he would do his best to get us started and then we were on our own. He would keep waving the baton so the audience would think we had a bandmaster, but we should keep playing no matter what. We actually did very well. That night we played "In Quiet Pastures" by Ray Steadman-Allen. I don't remember anything else we played, but we sounded good. We were comfortable playing with the National Capital Divisional Band. I really enjoyed playing in this band. The bandsmen were very friendly. There was no arrogance and everybody enjoyed being there.

On the other hand, the National Capital Divisional Bandmaster, Campbell Robinson, would play his cornet with the band. Every time I saw their band play I thought it was weird that with such a good band he thought he had to play Solo Cornet from time to time. I think this happened when one of the military bands was out of town and a cornet player or two were missing. When he wasn't playing, he would hold his cornet between his knees and conduct with both hands. This too, was weird, in my humble opinion..

This was another very busy band in which all of the players loved each other and just loved playing in a Salvation Army Band. It was great.

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