The Longest Day of My Life
By: ~Ceili~
A long, long span of almost 48 hours and two competitions: LMBA and
NYSFBC Championships...please r/r
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The bus ride continued as it started, rowdy and noisey. I waited for one
of the drum majors to say something, but I quickly realized that they were
encouraging more noise than they were stopping. What else was I expected
to do? I joined in. We stopped for lunch and everyone scrambled for the
doors to the resteraunt, including the rookies. The first and second year
kids scrambled for seats while the Seniors and Juniors shoved around in the
lines, fighting for the best spots. As soon as the older kids sat down, the
younger half of the band jumped up and began the fight for line positions
all over again. Two or three of us made our way out to the bus and listened
to music while eating lunch. Another kid or two slept in the front of the
bus, exhausted from the hours we'd been putting in and the late night we'd had
the night before, coming back from an 'away' football game. Craig cranked the
stereo, and put in his NIN CD. Soon other kids were straggling out of the
resteraunt and sat in the back of the bus with us, letting the reality of what
we were about to do sink in. All the months of sectionals, late practices,
Saturday morning practices, and endless hours of hard work devoted to the band
all spent for today and tommorrow. The LMBA(Lakeshore Marching Band Association)
and NYSFBC (New York State Field Band Conference) Championships. We hadn't had a
*bad* season, per se, but it was no where near as good as last year's undefeated
season. We wanted the LMBA first place trophy so bad we could taste it.
We reached the warm-up area before any other band, even though we were
scheduled to compete later than most other bands. We quickly changed into our
uniforms and began to put our instruments together. The routine was the same
as any other year for championships. Get ready, stay warm, take pictures, warm up,
and head down to the stadium. I had talked to other bands that had arrived and it
seemed like we had some really serious competition. I was begining to get nervous.
My fifth year in band, my fifth year marching on AstroTurf in a packed stadium, my
fifth year of awards, of hoping and praying, of practice and pain...and I was still
nervous. We lined up outside the stadium and entered silently, watching out most
dangerous competition with the grim realization that they might just be better than
us. I took a deep breath and then turned my attention back to my own performance.
So what if they thought they were better, so what if they'd beat us before. We'd
beaten them too. I marched my routine in my head, barely thinking about it at all.
It was that simple for me now. The band before us left the stadium to their cadence
and we prepared to go on. "mark time mark" came the almost inaudible command from our
drum majors "forward move" I marched along proudly as the announcer read our list of
accomplishments over the past year, and even more proudly when he said "2000 LMBA
Champions." The tap on the snare drum went from an almost silent rim tap, to a louder
rim tap, into the cadence. It seemed like it lasted forever, but at the same time it
felt like it was over before it started. The next 20 minutes were a blur and the next
thing I knew we were back on the bus, headed for the school in New York where we would
spend the night. The music played on behind me, 'Smoke' by Ben Folds Five if I remember
correctly. And then it happened...The Cell Phone rang...It was our Drum major's father
calling from the stadium with the results...I took a deep breath and waited for our
director to announce the results he was busily scribbling on a piece of paper....