Senior Night & the High Note King

Last Friday was Senior Night at the football game, where the football players, cheerleaders, poms, trainers, and yes, marching band seniors and their parents get to parade around the track for a brief moment of glory.  (Very brief compared to the interminable waiting beforehand).

Here is the brief moment of glory.

And here is a relaxed moment with friends during the interminable waiting.

The JV game went late, so by the time the Senior Night ceremonies and 9/11 commemorations were done, and a shortened pre-game show on the track, the varsity game didn't get started until about 8:15 p.m.  Despite how exhausted the senior was, occasional glances through the binoculars showed he was having a lot of fun.  The junior high bands played in the stands with them, and the band was loud.

Believe it or not, we have learned to pick his trumpet out of the crowd at times.  I have designated him the High Note King, because in a lineup of good senior trumpet players, the high notes have become his niche.  He's the one hitting that killer note -"land of the free" in the Star-Spangled Banner.   He also gets a high note in at the end of "Thriller" during the Marching Show.  He is not one for solos - he is not part of the trio of trumpets featured during the Elvis medley.  He does, however, have a few solo bars during "Bohemian Rhapsody", which made its debut that night.  As is typical, he did not share with us beforehand that this was coming.  But we had a great view of him on the field and as soon as we heard the notes, we knew it was him.  Tremendous parental pride - this is the kid who really struggled with his instrument in 6th grade and he has had periods of challenge with it from time to time since.  But this is also the kid who works and works and doesn't give up.  Both me and his dad were just beaming Friday night!

Band Boosters: Emptying the Nest, Losing a Community Connection

Tonight is the first Band Boosters meeting of the year.  I am starting my 5th year as an officer - my second year as President.   And though I have been telling myself, just one more year of monthly Monday commitments, I am wondering if it is going to be a big shock when next year, it is just gone out of my life.  For that is the thing, when your last one goes, it is not just your child that is missing from the house, but it is all the activities, schedules, organizations, and connections to community that goes with him.  For our family, our children's involvement in the high school band, and my involvement with Band Boosters, is really the only connection to the town we live in.  Since neither myself nor my husband are from here, and neither of us have family here, the schools are our link to this town.  When that connection is severed next year, there is really nothing holding us here (Except pathetic real estate values and virtually unsellable homes - it was great living in one of the fastest growing counties in the country.  Until it wasn't.)  We do have nice neighbors, but the majority of them are still firmly in the "kids in school" stage of life.  Our jobs take our focus away from here, though the community college where I am on faculty includes this town and draws many students from our town.  Working through this process of leaving this part of the community and figuring out what to replace it with is part of the purpose of this blog.  I know there are plenty of empty next blogs out there, but those are for another day.

For now, I have a meeting to run and new band families to welcome!

Friday Night Lights

Marching band season started a few weeks ago (and I will post my pictures of that some time I promise) but this past weekend was the football home-opener so the band had their "official" field show debut.  Bands don't travel to away games where we are - if any of my Texas friends are reading this, I would like to know if Texas bands still travel -  so this was in fact the second week of football.  They won last week.

Whatever, as always, lead-up time is crazy around here, so this is what passes for asking the youngest to pose for a picture.  It is actually not too bad, but what you don't see is that I grabbed the half-eaten hot dog out of his hand in order to take the picture.  Then he & the hot dog were out the door.  Hopefully the hot dog is not still in the car!

The band only marched two songs, stood for the third, and substituted the fight song for the fourth.  He is disappointed with their progress.  We left in the 3rd quarter.  And the team lost, but to a Top 20 team in the state.

I thought I took more pictures at the game, but I seem to have deleted them, so here are a couple to hold us over until next home game in two weeks.  Which should be Senior Night. Record: 1-1

Band walking in for pre-game show on the track.

Color guard leading the way.  Coin toss going on in the background.