It's Not Over 'Till It's Over

It's over. Well, almost, anyway. Our competition season for Marching Band is over. Yes, there's a few more football games to play (our team made the playoffs for the first time in who knows how long), but there are no more practices, no more marching in the rain. Just doing the fun pep band stuff in the stands.

So the last competition was in Pennsylvania on Halloween night (who schedules these things?). The performance time was late enough (of course) that Rachel and William went trick-or-treating, THEN we loaded up in the car and drove west. I figured we had the time change, the kids could stay up late.

So we drove out, in the rain (of course! Did you expect less?) and darkness, and got to the stadium during the break between groups. We saw all the bands in our group. Some were good, some were great. There was drizzle, off and on, but not really rain. One of the sousaphone players (not in our band) FELL DOWN during the routine. My heart broke for him - this was a BIG deal competition, and he landed on his bottom. Poor thing. Our band marched out (last, of course, but that's because we'd scored highly the previous weekend, so it's actually good) and the drizzle kicked it up a notch. Then it became actual rain. Then a little more rain. Then it slowed and stopped - just as they finished their routine. Just for us. Special.

While we were waiting for the scoring, a university band came out and marched. JC later told me that there were 425 members in this band. They filled the field! They were marching on, and they just kept coming! And they were really good, and did lots of fun stuff. 24 sousaphones. William really enjoyed that, but by that time it was about 11:30pm, so we started to leave before they announced the scores. We could hear the announcer while we were walking down the street, so we walked very slowly, and heard the whole thing.

WE WON! Our band has never won this competition before. John described the director as "beside himself." It was a stunning end to a really surprising season. And now, I won't be blogging about marching band anymore (probably). Until next fall. Unless I can get the video I took to upload.