Next to December, October is my favorite month and this year, it has been a busy one. All of the above have played large parts. But the colors have started to fade to a barren brown, the weather has taken a blustery turn, and the football has been, well, a bit like Jekyll and Hyde...you never know which team is going to come and play. The corn maze has been visited, the pumpkins plucked from the "most sincere pumpkin patch around", the Great Pumpkin has been watched and the pumpkins carved. Since we're too old to Trick or Treat, that leaves one final activity for the month...Indiana State School Music Association's Marching Band State Championships.
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| The Class B field of 10 Finalists |
As I was waiting for my alma mater's class to begin, my eyes were drawn to the huge HD video screens in the corners of Lucas Oil Stadium, where played an interview with someone who was also a former marcher in one of the Indiana high school marching bands. I had to laugh when they said, "It's one of those things that when you start out you wonder why you are doing this and you aren't having fun, but then one day you look up and you realize it's gotten into your blood." Preach it, brother!
It was 20 years ago that I was struggling with those same feelings as a freshman in the Concord High School Marching Minutemen. My family often reminds me of my coming home one Wednesday evening (the night of the intensive weekly 3 hour rehearsals) in tears because I hated marching band so much, I didn't know what I was doing, and I wasn't going to be able to do it. They sympathized with me, but told me that since I had committed and others were counting on me, I had to honor my commitments. Next year, though, I could choose not to march.
Two months later, as the season came to an end on the AstroTurf of the (then) Hoosier Dome, I was devastated that marching band was over for the season. It had gotten into my blood.
One year later, we marched off the field as the last band standing, bringing our school's first Class B State Championship trophy home to Elkhart. And twenty years later, I had the great pleasure of being in the crowd as, once again, the Marching Minutemen were the last band standing.
To my fellow marchers, one day, if you haven't had the time already, you will reflect upon the kind of man or woman this activity has moulded you into: the kind who wakes before dawn not because someone told you to, but because you told yourself you needed to; the kind who helps someone else because you win and lose as a unit; one whose honor dictates that even though no one else knew you messed up, you do the push-ups anyway.
Congratulations to all the young men and women that make up the 2011 Class B State Champion Marching Minutemen. I am proud to have worn the green and white.
