Chapter 1
Here I am. Mere minutes away from the biggest and last marching band performance of my life. We just finished our warm-up with scales and light marching. Basics, you know. I go over to a tiny little area that's very quiet and get mentally ready and I do my pre-show prayer. It was only until after my prayer that it hits me like a punch in the stomach. This is my last time.
One final go. I'd spent 4 years doing this stuff. Most of the time hating every minute of the practicing, the heat, the cold, everything about it. But this time...I didn't want to stop. This year, I was having fun. I didn't want this marching season to end. I'd made a bunch of new friends and had so many good times this year that I didn't have in the past. But why? Why was this year so different from the past three?
Was it because I was a senior in high school? Was it because of outside friends giving me a better attitude? Was it because I was good at marching and playing? All these questions ran through my mind right around the time of the performance.
"Come on, focus!", I say. I take deep breaths. Three, to be exact. But it's not working. I still have thoughts going through my mind that shouldn't even be there. At least, not until after the performance. This is GSL! The one time I have to focus. I have to be ready. Mentally, physically, psychologically. But I'm not. What is wrong with me? I'm a veteran. I've been here before.
I take a walk to the nearby drinking fountain to splash water onto my face. Doing that type of thing usually gets me into the proper mindset. It gets me focused when I'm not thinking clearly. Fellow trumpeter, Ethan, walks by and sees me doing this. He asks if I'm all right and I tell him, "I'm fine, you ready?" He responds with, "Yeah, I guess so." Typical Ethan.
But he doesn't know how nervous I actually am. No one does. And I can't let anyone know that.
"Hey, band let's go! Follow me and be quiet." I really didn't want to hear those words at that time. I was still a nervous wreck. I may not have looked it, but my insides felt like they were double-knotted tighter than my marching shoes. We stop right at the entrance. I'm thinking, "good, this gives me a little time to relax." But I couldn't. See, we were supposed to be quiet but band kids don't know how to do that. So, I can't relax, I can't settle down a bit, I can't get into the right mind set. Not with all the chitter-chatter going on.
Mr. Tucker, our director, instructs us to follow him out onto the field, in the endzone. I lay my silver, tin-foiled hula-hoop down on the grass-turf. We warm-up for the last time before our performance with a descending B-Flat scale at a level three volume. We finish with that and I pick up my hula-hoop and we're ready to perform. The question for me being, "Am I ready?"
I hear the snare drum click 4 times and we take that first step on the Edward Jones Dome turf...