Drum Corps Love
"Flight 383 to Rockford, Illinois now boarding at gate 25" said the voice over the loud speaker. "This is it" thought Andrew, "I'm really going". He looked at Amanda who was sitting next to him as they stood up and began to head for the gate. Both of them were both going for the same reason.
When they had first entered high school 4 years earlier, besides academics there was one thing they loved above all, marching band. They loved the long after school rehearsals and the hard work and dedication it took to put a championship field show out on the field and the feel of competition, warming in the lot before shows, marching on to the field and playing through the onfield warmup while hyping themselves up as well as the sudden adrenaline rush they got when they heard "Oak Ridge High School, you may take the field for competition" break the silence of the night as well as the immense joy of coming off the field after a great show and snapping to attention at retreat when their placement was called. As percussionists they both knew it very well after the days of long rehearsals, intense sectionals and tough marching blocks in the summer heat of band camp as well as the in the fall and winter all while carrying drums. Amanda had become a proficient bass drummer and Andrew, none the less became a great snare drummer and both had become immersed in the art of marching percussion. They even thought how they would get on without it after high school until one day their caption head, Joe Marconi while addressing the drumline as freshmen said "this summer, we are going to take a trip and see the DCI show at Giants Stadium" The two looked at each other as if to say, "what is DCI?" when Marconi explained that DCI which stood for Drum Corps International was like the major leagues of marching band except the bands were drum and bugle corps with just brass, percussion and colorguard and that the performers were all high school and college kids who were the best at what they did. Excited, Andrew and Amanda attended their first drum corps show together and had a blast, they loved every corps however there was one that stuck out to them, they remembered the all white uniform, the crisp marching, the rich sounding brass line, and more importantly to them, the most incredible drumline they had ever seen, when they were leaving that night, they were so amazed that they said to each other during the bus ride back to school, one day, we'll be out there with them. The corps the remembered most had a name that stood out to them, Phantom Regiment, and from that day on, their ultimate goal was to one day take the field as members of Phantom Regiment's drumline. Now graduated from high school and freshman at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where they studied with Thom Hannum, the DCI legend of the 80s and 90s as members of the UMass snare and basslines and also with a year of DCI experience under their belts in a Division II corps, they had a chance to fulfill their dreams.