Last week of Junior Year Marching band season.

Insert a deep, deep, maternal sigh here...

Marching band competition season "proper" ended in October.
Football games necessitate lots of travel on the part of the band, and weeks that run well into December.
That is where we've found ourselves this year.

This coming Saturday, we'll have a long, long day at marching band, but it will be the last day of marching band this year.
First, we have Christmas parades, which are fun, in and of themselves.
You all know that a parade 'sounds' like the merry sound of a marching band, playing carols.

 

 

We are scheduled to do three parades, but will be cutting the day short, in order to go to
the state capital with our football team as they vie for the State 3A championships.
We wish the best of luck to the Clinton High Red Devils on their way to State!

This makes for a long, long, long season for the parents, whose presence is required
and necessary.  We coordinate and pack, and load buses and trucks.
We encourage and discourage and keep careful watch over our own progeny and all their friends.
We feed them and hug them and dry their tears.
We watch in those moments of pre-performance fear and in those moments of  sheer elation.

 

This coming Saturday will mark the end of my youngest child's junior year of marching a snare drum.
I fully appreciate his buddies on the drumline, for making a season full of spirit and fun and being a tight band of brothers.
I am thankful for a young and enthusiastic band director, who brought us to a new place and made us better and made my child smile again, while strapped into his drum.
I appreciate all the parents who came and worked and cared.
I appreciate all the smiles and hugs that came MY way.

I wish for my son, a senior year of marching band...
of heat and sun, of cold and rain,
of trials and triumphs,
of hands and hearts together as one...
on a field of competition... under the lights.
For all the life lessons learned... for the depth of feeling of the family that is band,
for the measured steady beat of a snare drum in the night,
I thank him for being the 'baby' in the family,
and for sharing this journey with his mother.