The marching band refused to yield.

All of my friends from college spent time with me on the football field.

Marching Mizzou Mellophone

I know I’ve mentioned my Marching Mizzou career at least once. (I just used the word Career. To me, the word Career is like the word Woman. Have we ever talked about the adult words that I’m not yet ready to embrace even though I’m technically an adult?) I ate sushi for the first time with my band friends. I did laundry in the middle of the night with my band friends. I ate a Thanksgiving turkey on the roof of a house with my band friends. I wrote bad poetry with my band friends. I did a lot of things that I won’t even mention here with my band friends. I tried to bake a turkey in a microwave FOR my band friends. These people were everything to me. They were my family. They are my family.

Why am I singing songs about this when nearly 30 years have passed and I can’t even remember the last time I held a mellophone?

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You guys, it’s because Meredith joined the marching band and she currently plays vibraphone and suddenly I have that marching band feeling again, but this time there is no drill to learn. All I have to do is sit in the stands and cheer (and volunteer to donate cookies and bottles of water and time). I’m loving it.

I shot this video more than a month ago. That’s Meredith playing the vibraphone on the far right. Her hands. They fly.

The next several Saturdays will be filled with competitions and funnel cakes and award ceremonies and hoodies and clogs and band kids and band parents and halftime shows and hot chocolate and nothing but goodness.

I’ve been waiting for this.

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(Also, I’m moderating my comments now because the deluge of spam is already a pain in the ass for me, and I don’t want it to become a pain in the ass for you. I would take a knee for you, you know.)

((I would. I would take a knee.)) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

11 thoughts on “The marching band refused to yield.”

  1. I saw this shirt on Instragram and I didn’t get it……and then it came to me. It’s the march cadence. Does the back of the shirt say beh beh beh beh, bah bah bah bah, buh buh buh buh, boom! ?
    Inquiring minds want to know. I’ve got two band kids at my house so far (the third one is looking like she might be a singer/theater kid like her mom) – but sadly our high school does NOT have a marching band. So – I’ll live vicariously through you if that’s okay.

    I’ve been wondering about apples – not so many posts from you this year – we actually have someone from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum coming to a team event here at my work to tell us all about apple naming……..can you guess whose idea this was? Ha! Anyway – I tried the new Rave/First Kiss and I don’t think it will dislodge any of my other favorites……
    Happy Fall!

  2. There was a story on CBS Sunday morning this week about a 52-year-old woman still marching in her university marching band. She’s remained a student at the university all this time just so she could stay in the band. The pictures they showed of her in marching band when she was young all show her as the happiest person. She said she never wanted to lose that, so she stayed in band.

    I carried a snare drum all over the field. I did not find joy in that. To each her own.

  3. You are so stinking cute and so is she! I was a band parent from 2000 to 2008 I LOVE marching band. Did you know I was at Mizzou 1988-89?

  4. I was a band geek in high school and loved it. Neither son wanted much of it — elder quit after a year in middle school, younger played sax through high school but never in the marching band.

  5. My daughter is in marching band, too. She doesn’t march, though. She plays the synthesizer. They did not do this when I was in marching band! Synthesizer? What?! We saw another band at a competition with an electric guitar player! Their show was a steam punk theme that included a giant geared machine that produced steam! Anyway, I am feeling a lot like you do. It’s a great time of year.

  6. Our high school bands won competitions all over the Midwest back when that was big deal. I transferred over to the “Pit” when it turned out I could read music and was able to underand what “octaves” were. Short version: band was my best experience from high school, and people I know who don’t suck say the same about college band experiences. She’s clearly on the right track.

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