What you are looking at it in this picture was my view this past Friday night. The gym is the same gym President Trump was in less than one week previous as mentioned in this previous post.
These kids, freshmen to seniors, have just spent one week at band camp about an hour away from home. During this trip, they spend time bonding, learning new drills, and some of them learning their instrument for the first time!
I wasn’t always excited about marching band. When I was in school, marching band was kinda for the music geeks. I played trumpet through the 9th grade, eventually quitting to play football. The worlds were just too far apart socially for me at the time and I was trying to fit in to a new school. Marching for me meant walking in straight lines with a strict discipline playing classical tunes that few of my peers, or I, really cared about.
My wife, however, was in something called a “show” marching band. This means that they dance, do crazy skits, and play current music. She always told me how much fun they had. “Band geek”, I secretly thought in my head.
Fast forward to 4 years ago and we have two kids and one of them is going to be marching in this marching band. I’m like meh… Turns out, they had a really cool instructor, played modern songs, and the kids all loved it. It showed in their performance.
Friday night got to be something I really looked forward to. The band had a big reputation and was HUGE. Last year’s version had 260 members. It’s crazy big. And crazy fun. All the band parents have a great time and getting back together for this event saw us see a bunch of friends we haven’t seen in awhile.
It really helps that the football has come on in the past few years and is interesting to watch and we get a great halftime show as well. Both of our kids were in this band in the drum line and it was so much fun watching them perform together. Now we get to watch our daughter own her time in the band. It’s gonna be a lot of fun and I’m so grateful that we get to witness it. When she really gets into it and just goes off, she shines through and you can see happiness inside. Very special.
Andddd, it’s another avenue for music.
LOVE IT!
Have a great week everyone and #GOBAND
-Just a Dude
Just a Dude 