Feeling Nostalgic

Hey kids.

I have had this really strange feeling come over me lately that I don't really know how to describe other than nostalgia.  This little feeling was brought on by an  invitation I received on facebook a few weeks back.  The story starts about oh I don't know 17 years ago.  Way back when I was a little 11 year old girl getting excited to start middle school.  I took piano lessons for a couple years in elementary school.  But when I was making the transition from elementary to middle school I knew I wanted to quit the piano lessons and join the band in middle school.  So that is what I did.  Because my district had an amazing music program, the high school had a day for the elementary kids to go in and try out all of the instruments so they could decide what to play in middle school.
My dad took me in and I tried out the french horn, and the clarinet. I couldn't decide between the two.  We asked the high school director what he thought.  He thought I'd be good on the french horn he said because I had a good ear.  In the end, I ignored him and chose the clarinet.

So it began, for the next 7 years I played the clarinet.  I liked it.  I loved band.  I loved the music.  I loved that all of my friends were in band with me.  So life continued, and I grew up.  By the time I made it to high school band, there were 4 concert bands (one for each grade level, with really good underclassmen in the upper bands). There were two band directors who were polar opposite personalities.  Mr. Rosario (who conducted the freshman and junior bands) was a goofy Puerto Rican who was obsessed with John Williams music, and always had a movie score for us to play.  His walls were also plastered in Star Wars posters.  He was fun. The other director, Mr. Pritchett was stern, and seriously, and not to be crossed, or tested.  His daughter Katie was in my grade.  He was a great conductor, and knew how to get the best out of us.

So high school moves on and I come to my senior year.  By this point in time, I somehow got this strange belief deep within me that I had no reason to stay friends with my high school friends after high school.  I knew who my "real" friends were.  They were my christo friends who I had always had a deeper connection with than anyone of my friends from school.  So I kept most of them at arms length, and I even grew apart from a few of them then.  But the people at school I was close with were all in band with me from 6th grade through senior year.

When we were juniors we knew our band was good.  Not just good, but exceptional.  Each year there is a state music competition for band.  Junior year we got perfect scores in all but one category and missed going to the state final by a tiny margin.  This was unheard of for a schools "secondary" band.

One of my most embarrassing life moments came in front of the whole band.  At our school if you were in band, you were automatically the marching band.  If we weren't forced to do marching band, our school wouldn't have had a marching band.  So our first day of marching band practice of my senior year there was pizza for everybody after practice.  Mr. P dismissed all of the seniors first.  Being so excited about finally being seniors my friends and I started walking inside.  Me, upon being so excited about being a senior, was excitedly talking to my friends and not paying attention to what I was doing tripped and fell on the curb. Embarrassing, yes.  I could hear the rest of the underclassman behind me laughing, and my friends were also giggling at my clumsiness as well.  But when I stood up I knew something was wrong.  My knee was bleeding so I hobbled to the bathroom and when there realized my ankle was swollen like crazy.  I limped back into the band room showed my friends my ankle.  Without informing the teachers about it, took my wounded pride and limped out to the parking lot, got in my car and went home.  When I walked inside I burst into tears.  Partially from the pain, and partially from the embarrassment.  After the hospital, I started my senior year off with a sprained ankle.

Senior year moves on.  At spring break the band took a trip to Disney World, which was awesome.  We got to play at the park.  We also got to go into the Disney recording studios and record a track with part of fantasia.  It was pretty cool.

The rest of the year was devoted to winning the state contest.  Our school hadn't won it in like 10 years which was unfortunate because they used to win it just about every year.
For the contest we played two songs.  One was a march, and the other was a 17 min long variation that featured each section of the band.  We killed it, and won state.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately because I recently got invited via facebook to an even this coming summer to celebrate by old band directors retirement.  He is getting together an alumni band to have a concert this summer.  I don't know why but ever since I got that invite, I've been thinking about my previous band life a lot.   I've been debating doing this or not.  Waiting to see if any of my old band friends were going to do it too.  I'm sure they aren't as several of them are now doctors on the east coast. 
I've been cat sitting for my parents this week.  We got dumped with 12 inches of snow yesterday, so had a snow day today.  So i've pretty much just been laying around my parents house today being bored.  I looked through their movie collection and found the tape of our state band competition.  So I guess watching that, and thinking about this alumni band got me feeling a little nostalgic.  -Among other things which I will go into at a later date.

I really don't know why I felt the need to go on this tangent about high school band, I guess its just been on my brain lately.