Marching Band Memories

Marching Band Memories(Emerald Gowers) It is eight o'clock on a cool October Pennsylvanian Friday night in 1997. I am standing on the twenty yard line, a pair of cymbals clutched tightly in my hands, dressed in a purple and white Sgt. Pepper looking marching band outfit, ready to go through the repititious motions of our "American Salute" halftime show that was drilled into our brains for two weeks the previous summer. The drum major steps up to his place on the grandstand and raises his arms to signal the beginning of the show.

It is my first and only year in the band. The fact that I had always wanted to play an instrument, but never had the opportunity due to strict parental confinement, had somewhat influenced my decision not to join previously, until a friend suggested that I join the pit, take a pair of cymbals and run wild. This was an idea that I took kindly to and signed up for the band at the end of my sophomore year.

"MARK 1, MARK 2, AND 123 GO!" The drum major screamed over the dull roar of the audience in the bleachers. I snap out of my reverie and slam the cymbals together eight times before the rest of the band kicks in.

We are at an away game thirty miles from the hustle and bustle of the city, at rural Ringgold High School. In the stands before the show, our fighting highlander mascot made a show of stealing the head off of the opposing team's beaver mascot, making a victory lap around the track screaming the cheer: "The cows go moo, the girls do too, here in the heart of Ringgold!" The band begins to chant the cheer along with him until the director motions for us to stop.

Slim, a pudgy freshman with polarized glasses and my comrade in the pit, rises above the din and shouts to the band director. "We're just telling them how it is Mr. McKeever! C'mon, everybody... The cows go moo!.."

There is a cry from at least ten other band members. "Shut up Slim!"

Slim sits down embarassed, "Where's their school spirit?" He asks me.

"Probably back at school." I say to him before turning back to my friends Jess and Tracie, and our conversation about an incident that happened on the bus on the way over, involving one of the flutists and a trumpet player.

The second song is over. I move with a quick and agile pace to my section of the pit band on the side lines and station myself in front of the windchimes. I look into the audience scanning for any familiar faces of family members who may have come to visit, and catch a glimpse of my aunt Michelle who is waving frantically. I smile and wave quickly back to her before I set the chimes in motion for the last song.

When the set was almost over, I took the chance to look around and absorb all that was going on around me. The audience transfixed as the band marched in unison under the bright lights, the flag girls twirling their silks at a hypnotising speed, the drum major frantically waving his arms slightly off beat to the tune of the music. These were good times.

The next year I would not join the marching band, having found a part time job as a cashier instead, in hopes of getting my own apartment and moving from my highly dysfunctional family.

But the places I had been to, the parades I had marched in, the stadiums where I had played, the crazy bus trips, the endless practices, and even just saying that I had been in the band, these are experiences that I would not trade for anything.