Retired Glenbrook North teacher shares his semi-true story of life as 'drum corps addict'

Mike Piskel maintains that he is not a writer. He's a science teacher.

It turns out he's both.

An award-winning Glenbrook North teacher from 1981-2018, Piskel's debut book illuminates a 100-year-old slice of Americana.

"Resume March: Confessions of a Drum Corps Addict," is a "semi-true story," the jacket notes, of the 39-year Northbrook resident's adventures in drum and bugle corps in Iowa and Wisconsin in the 1970s.

It also details the corps' evolution from a patriotic pursuit of the American Legion to "a Broadway production on a football field," he said, for competitive teams with million-dollar budgets.

"Resume March" is a 306-page page-turner that's got a 4.9 rating on Amazon.com, and lots of complimentary reviews. Piskel has a book signing and meet-and-greet scheduled for 6:30-8 p.m. May 11 at the Book Bin, 1151 Church St., Northbrook.

"I used the events in my life and my involvement in the activity to tell the history of drum and bugle corps. I tell it as if it's happening in the 1970s. It's told through the voice of a 20-year-old kid. That's what makes the story compelling, as well," said Piskel, 65, who first picked up the trumpet in elementary school in his native Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

After a year at New Trier right out of the University of Iowa, Piskel taught science classes at Glenbrook North for 37 years. His popular elective, "Brain Studies: Exploring Your Human Potential," attracted "about half of the senior class," Piskel said.

In 1997, he was named Glenbrook North's Distinguished Teacher. In 2013, he was a Golden Apple teacher of distinction.

"I was able to teach kids who wanted to learn," he said.

Piskel sponsored Glenbrook North clubs for magic and juggling, science, fishing, and Future Educators of America. He sponsored a benefit concert, Sound Stage, that raised more than $12,000 for multiple sclerosis research. He was, and remains, the announcer for boys and girls volleyball games, and occasionally still supervises WGBK radio broadcasts.

In "retirement" Piskel works in native landscaping for Foot Stone Inc., owned by Glenbrook North graduate and Glenview resident Rob Sulski. Piskel recently helped clear invasive species from the Glenbrook North Prairie Nature Preserve.

The Rivers Biology curriculum he and Glenbrook North colleague Bud Mathieu designed earned both acknowledgment as 1999 Friends of the Chicago River Educator of the Year.

Piskel wrote articles for Midwest Outdoors magazine and fishing publications, and capsule biographies of retiring teachers, then as emcee, he read them at the annual retirement gala.

But writing a book never was part of his plan.

"I'm not a writer, but I am a storyteller," said Piskel, convinced none of his stories translated to long-form writing.

That was until he and his daughter, Sophie, began searching the internet for a history of drum and bugle corps. They didn't find much.

Corps began in 1921, Piskel said, an American Legion effort that became common in hometown parades and eventually in competitions. The number of these groups boomed along with post-World War II patriotism, and peaked in about 1970-75 when Piskel estimated there were around 400 competing junior drum and bugle corps and 10 times that overall.

The modern era of competition emerged around 1971 with the founding of Drum Corps International to organize them all. In 1972, when DCI incorporated as a nonprofit, Piskel joined its world after a junior high pal convinced him to attend an Emerald Knights corps practice in Cedar Rapids.

"The truth is I didn't want to go to drum corps practice, but it was a cold January day and I didn't have anything else to do," he said.

Piskel played with the Knights until 1978 when he joined the Blue Stars out of Lacrosse, Wisconsin, who needed a horn. "Resume March" (Windy City Publishing) starts with his transition between programs.

At the 1978 DCI World Championship he performed in front of 31,000 people at Denver's Mile High Stadium with the Blue Stars; the next year as their drum major, the Blue Stars and other championship finalists played for 32,000 people in Birmingham, Alabama's Legion Field.

The Blue Stars finished eighth and 10th, respectively, those years, with the top-12 considered elite.

At 22 by 1980, Piskel had aged out of junior drum and bugle and didn't continue with a senior corps, focusing on teaching and his marriage.

His wife, Beth, is associate director of admissions at Creighton University.

Piskel still attends the DCI World Championships, held this year at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. He came to realize he had the makings of a book, which he wrote over nearly four years.

"My goals are to reconnect people to their experiences, to introduce people who maybe are not familiar with the activity to have a book that chronicles the history of drums corps in a way I think is pretty entertaining, and to have my daughter and my family to have a record of my voice," Piskel said.

As the title suggests, there are some confessions in the book.

"I tried to connect with my 20-year-old self but at the same time I didn't want the book to become sex, drugs, and drum and bugle corps," Piskel said.

So far he's sold about 400 copies. He hopes events like the Book Bin signing spur further interest.

"I would say writing a book is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done," Piskel said. "I welcome other people to try to do it, because it's a challenge and it's a pretty good exercise to try to figure yourself out."