It's me again.
Not that you would expect anyone but me here...
There are a few things I left out of yesterday's entry that I wanted to say, but I just couldn't fit them in. But after yesterday, I figured I should do this now.
Like I said, Friday night was Senior night. Last football game, last time some people would ever march a field show (like me, but I'm not that broken up about it, truly). But it's one of those milestones. Those last milestones of our high school careers. It's one of those times when we ban the use of the "L" word (last).
After our field show (in which we just stood on the traack on front of the bleachers and played our show. Our director calls this a "park 'n' bark"), the whole band got into what we call the "swirly" (we get into thie massively long line and, you guessed it, make a swirly around our director) and had our usual post-performance debriefing. Then our director dismissed the band, asking the seniors to stay behind so he could talk to us privately.
Senior Circle.
This is tradition, for our director (let's call him Grams) to address the seniors after our last football game. To give us words of wisdom for the months to come, to commend us on our job as leaders so far (if there is anything to commend). All in all, it's an emotional time. Nobody cried. But it wasn't a night for tears. At this point, it's a time of celebration of how far my class has come, and excitement for what's ahead of us. The time for tears is in June, when we have our other Senior circle, after our last parade. I'll cry then.
I'm so proud of the Seniors in band this year. I'm proud to call them some of my closest friends. We've been through a lot together in the past two and a half years (for some people, it's been longer). We started out being told that we were going to march in the Tournament of Roses Parade (the big one down in Pasadena, CA on New Year's Day, 2010) and we had to be in shape to march all five-and-a-half miles of it and play the entire time. We didn't have a choice between doing it or not. We just had to do it. And we've kept that mentality ever since. It's shaped the band over the past two years, and now we're better than ever.
Of course we couldn't do it by ourselves. We had help, by the two senior classes before us. The senior class of our sophomore year impacted us the most, even to this day. They taught us how to lead, how to set the example for the underclassmen, how to lead the band in the right direction. And Friday night, we paid tribute to them in the most awesome way we could think of.
Sophomore year, for the Rose Parade, we chose to play an array of songs, one of which was a medley of two Beatles songs (as a tribute to the band that initially auditioned to get into the Rose Parade, where the Seniors were sophomores) and two Bon Jovi Songs, "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on A Prayer". We still think of that class, and Grams even said in his speech that our class and theirs are similar in many ways. So, Friday night, as a tribute to them, to the band that went to the Rose Parade (we're an almost extinct species), as the students ran out onto the field after our team won their last home game, after we played the school's victory song, our drum majors counted us off and played "Livin' on A Prayer".
And it was awesome. I hoped all of the graduates could hear it. They would be proud of us. Nay. They are proud of us. And I know the seniors this year will be proud of the band next year. Because we care about what happens after we leave. We never want what we had (again, that whole aspect of family) to disappear.
Take my hand, and we'll make it, I swear...
You live for the fight when it's all that you've got...
Songs of the Moment: Can't Help Falling in Love, Burning Love, C.C Rider, Hound Dog, Love Me Tender, Jailhouse Rock, Livin' on A Prayer...For the Seniors, past and present
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