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So we went to our last fall band review Saturday -- in Stockton. Valley towns are just different. The kids were frazled, a little, from all the drama last week -- actually the drama at the Madera band review was not half as bad as the parental drama that kept boiling over all week. I don't think I made things better. I responded rather primitively to the parents who were being disrespectful of the kids and not trusting the band director's ability to hold them together. The kids are good kids, and the band director is more than competent to keep them in line -- she's one of the four or five best teachers I've ever had the privilege to watch.
It was a difficult day in many ways. The band mommies who knew the most about loading the uniforms and stuff were on strike, more or less -- they came along, but they wouldn't talk to the kids or the rest of the band mommies, and they disappeared at crucial times so nobody could ask them questions -- and there were a few little crises. Not enough white belts for the pipers: no spats or argyles for the pipers: a bunch of other little things. But the kids (especially my Emma) solved problems, and the mommies solved problems, and the band director and her assistant solved problems, and the kids were entirely pro when they hit the street. They looked so very good. I thought that the band didn't sound quite as good as they did the week before, but the judges thought they were fine. I overheard a judge talking into his little tape recorder, and he was saying all good things, including "You look very good. You obviously listen to your band director," and so on.
The color guard was having a lot of trouble: they dropped their flags, their rifles, their hats. But you don't necessarily lose points for drops -- if you handle it right, and don't lose your place or let your smile fade, you can get away with it. Four out of five of the rifles dropped -- they're not real rifles, they're just wooden things to throw and twirl and dance with -- all at once, and the judge decided it was a freak gust of wind.
So, come awards. Last week the awards ceremony was awful -- the kids had to mill around on the courthouse lawn in Madera (another Valley town), with no bleachers, and they couldn't see or hear the proceedings. This week the awards ceremony was in the high school football stadium, which is a whole other thing. Artificial turf in brilliant colors and the school's initial and logo inlaid in it: huge bleachers built onto artificial slopes: and a press box which I did not comprehend at first: it's a room elevated above the bleachers, made of cement and equipped with windows like the guard tower on a penitentiary.
Our kids are the loudest in the stands, but they're not screeching and acting like jerks. They're doing songs and chants, and greeting the other schools, and cheering for themselves, each other, and the other schools. They're doing the "school spirit" thing. And nobody's lecturing them on school spirit, and nobody's giving them the usual high school crap: they have this spirit because they have high morale, because they work hard together and accomplish things, and because they know their school is unique in all the world.
We're in the division of the smallest schools -- division C, and it goes up to AA. Some awards are given within divisions, and some awards are given over all ("sweepstakes"). We expect to place all the time now, and to get first a lot of the time. So we got first in our division in parade, and third for drum major, and -- we didn't place for auxiliary (color guard). Much gloom. But sweepstakes in auxiliary hasn't been announced. But -- there were all those drops, and in sweepstakes we're competing against very pro schools -- Benicia, for example, a division A school that walks away with almost all the first places and/or sweepstakes in every competition they enter. So -- you already know the end of this story, but the kids didn't, and the mommies and daddies didn't -- I kept saying, "well, probably not with all those drops, but the kids looked very good and I wouldn't be surprised --" which meant I was the only one not surprised when they announced a tie for sweepstakes in auxiliary. They didn't even have to say who the tie was -- everybody knew immediately it was Benicia and Santa Cruz. Much screaming, cheering, hurraying -- and the color guard captain who accepted the award had tears on her face. No wonder. The award was bigger than she was, and she was toppling over carrying it off the field.
So it was a roller coaster day, but the 3 hour ride back to Santa Cruz was really pleasant, because the two busloads of adolescents had had a triumph in Stockton. We tied with Benicia.
I think I'm supposed to, at this point, draw a shiny moral about perserverance, or the rewards of teamwork, or not letting dropped props and missing spats get to you. But really I think it would be cheap to do that. Way too facile. I'd rather just leave it at -- the ride home was so easy, and the kids unloaded that truck so fast, and so many of them were willing to play the football game that night, because we tied with Benicia.
It was a difficult day in many ways. The band mommies who knew the most about loading the uniforms and stuff were on strike, more or less -- they came along, but they wouldn't talk to the kids or the rest of the band mommies, and they disappeared at crucial times so nobody could ask them questions -- and there were a few little crises. Not enough white belts for the pipers: no spats or argyles for the pipers: a bunch of other little things. But the kids (especially my Emma) solved problems, and the mommies solved problems, and the band director and her assistant solved problems, and the kids were entirely pro when they hit the street. They looked so very good. I thought that the band didn't sound quite as good as they did the week before, but the judges thought they were fine. I overheard a judge talking into his little tape recorder, and he was saying all good things, including "You look very good. You obviously listen to your band director," and so on.
The color guard was having a lot of trouble: they dropped their flags, their rifles, their hats. But you don't necessarily lose points for drops -- if you handle it right, and don't lose your place or let your smile fade, you can get away with it. Four out of five of the rifles dropped -- they're not real rifles, they're just wooden things to throw and twirl and dance with -- all at once, and the judge decided it was a freak gust of wind.
So, come awards. Last week the awards ceremony was awful -- the kids had to mill around on the courthouse lawn in Madera (another Valley town), with no bleachers, and they couldn't see or hear the proceedings. This week the awards ceremony was in the high school football stadium, which is a whole other thing. Artificial turf in brilliant colors and the school's initial and logo inlaid in it: huge bleachers built onto artificial slopes: and a press box which I did not comprehend at first: it's a room elevated above the bleachers, made of cement and equipped with windows like the guard tower on a penitentiary.
Our kids are the loudest in the stands, but they're not screeching and acting like jerks. They're doing songs and chants, and greeting the other schools, and cheering for themselves, each other, and the other schools. They're doing the "school spirit" thing. And nobody's lecturing them on school spirit, and nobody's giving them the usual high school crap: they have this spirit because they have high morale, because they work hard together and accomplish things, and because they know their school is unique in all the world.
We're in the division of the smallest schools -- division C, and it goes up to AA. Some awards are given within divisions, and some awards are given over all ("sweepstakes"). We expect to place all the time now, and to get first a lot of the time. So we got first in our division in parade, and third for drum major, and -- we didn't place for auxiliary (color guard). Much gloom. But sweepstakes in auxiliary hasn't been announced. But -- there were all those drops, and in sweepstakes we're competing against very pro schools -- Benicia, for example, a division A school that walks away with almost all the first places and/or sweepstakes in every competition they enter. So -- you already know the end of this story, but the kids didn't, and the mommies and daddies didn't -- I kept saying, "well, probably not with all those drops, but the kids looked very good and I wouldn't be surprised --" which meant I was the only one not surprised when they announced a tie for sweepstakes in auxiliary. They didn't even have to say who the tie was -- everybody knew immediately it was Benicia and Santa Cruz. Much screaming, cheering, hurraying -- and the color guard captain who accepted the award had tears on her face. No wonder. The award was bigger than she was, and she was toppling over carrying it off the field.
So it was a roller coaster day, but the 3 hour ride back to Santa Cruz was really pleasant, because the two busloads of adolescents had had a triumph in Stockton. We tied with Benicia.
I think I'm supposed to, at this point, draw a shiny moral about perserverance, or the rewards of teamwork, or not letting dropped props and missing spats get to you. But really I think it would be cheap to do that. Way too facile. I'd rather just leave it at -- the ride home was so easy, and the kids unloaded that truck so fast, and so many of them were willing to play the football game that night, because we tied with Benicia.