Flashback Friday

This edition of Flaaaaashback Friday is courtesy of my mother.  She had some old newspapers she had saved EONS ago at the house for me Monday.  (Yea, I did not get her sentiment gene....I save nothing...) & one of the dates on the papers coincides with right now & voila, a blog post was born.

Today we're gonna talk about Marching Band.  Yea, yea - you can call me a band geek if you want...but if you do - I will totally block your ass from reading ever again...   Banders is what everyone called us to our faces in school.  I was in band from 6th grade until I graduated.  I played the flute mostly & my senior year I got promoted to piccolo.  I can't tell you how AWESOME it was to only carry around the piccolo rather than that big 'ole long flute.

I went to North Harrison High School & graduated in 1994.  Seems like yesterday...NOT eighteen (cough) years ago... wow.

Do ya'll remember how when you got your senior yearbook it was a year behind?  And how you had to go back to school AFTER you graduated to get your book?!  Well, B-rad & I were dating & he was a senior & since I was WAY too cool to go back to school & he was there - he picked it up for me. 

 Imagine my displeaseure when the name I mom paid EXTRA for looked like this:  Agony...

Ok, back to the band.  I LOVED being in band.  It was SO much hard work, but we had SO much fun.  This will really make me sound old, but we had just good 'ole fashion FUN, ya know?  We didn't drink (at least MY friends didn't), we didn't smoke, we didn't do drugs & we didn't get into trouble.  We just loved to hang out & have a great time.  We took trips together too.  My sophomore year we went to the Smoky Mountains.  Of course, we had to perform while we were there.  I am the 2nd flute player from the right.  Check out that my toe is UP & my flute is pretty straight across.  Signs of a good awesome bander!

My junior year was about the time I also came out of that horrible shell I was stuck in most my life.  

  Flirting was my friend...

 No boy was immune...

Even boys that were friends with my brother...

I dated none of these boys...

I'm not sure if that sounds good or bad?  

Eh, who cares?  I was flirty, fun, talkative & HAPPY.

My senior year we took a trip to Florida.  We went to MGM & performed there.  We went to a waterpark one day & these hottie lifeguards were there.  Notice me in the back as close as humanly possible to the hottie on the right?  

I'm proud sad to tell you that if memory serves, it was MY idea to get this pic.  I just made these gals get up there with me, you know - so it didn't look so obvious that I was in love.

I had a LOT of fun with these gals right here.  We were always together.  I was a senior & they were freshman.  I could drive & they could not so that gave me extra cool points.   We went to ball games together & the cool thing to do back then was to go to Pizza Hut after the games to hang out.  (It was the only restaurant in Corydon back then.)

(Marcia you HAVE to remember me calling to beg if Alicia could go too?!  I will never, ever forget doing that nearly every Friday night!)

 So one of the newspapers mom had saved for me was from 1992.  And it was an article about our marching band performing at the state competition.  

 The date was October 28, 1992.  I said, 'Wow - 10 years ago... crazy...'  

Mom said, "UHM - isn't that 20 years ago?"  

No, it surely does not feel like 20 years ago.  Holy crap.

 Let me paint a picture for you - making it to state is the pinnacle of a season for a marching band.  Our band hadn't been there in a LOOOOOONG time.  I will never forget it - we were at regional competition & our band director did NOT allow us to go bat shit crazy when we won stuff.  We were to stand at attention.  (We were a class act, people.)  And stand at attention we did every competition we won.  At regional they announce who qualified for state in order of your performance.  We had performed like 2nd or 3rd so we were gonna know pretty fast what our fate was.  

We were the Marching Cougars & we stood in those bleachers at attention.... & the announcer started reading names...then we heard, 'THE MARCHING COOO" & that was it.  We never even head the 'UGARS'  We knew.  And we went bat.shit.crazy.  

(it brings tears to my eyes remember how excited we were.)

Although it seemed like mere seconds that we were all hugging & crying & being bat shit crazy, when we looked up - we saw other bands charging the field that had made it.  It was over - & we had made it.  

We went to Indianapolis to the RCA Dome to compete.  A funny thing I read in the article was about hash marks.  If you don't know anything about marching band, we use the yard lines & hash marks on the football field to know our positions while we're performing.  On all our fields, they were WHITE.  At the RCA dome - they were yellow.  This is a cute paragraph about our director trying to calm our nerves.

Our theme that year was West Side Story & at the end we made a heart formation.  

Yea, it's not perfect, I know....

(Colts fan - how cool is this?  I.WAS.ON.THAT.FIELD!!)

I'm on the top of the heart on the right around the 40ish yard mark...somewhere...

 We placed 8th in our class that year.  My senior year we really, really hoped we'd make it, but sadly we did not qualify for state.  Tear.  It was truly heartbreaking.  The Marching Cougars did, however, go on to qualify for state 10 times from 1997 to 2006.  And twice, they WON.   What an accomplishment!

Those band uniforms SUCKED OUT LOUD.  Totally uncomfortable AND not flattering at all.  I'm the 4th chick from the right.  Next to the band director.  I promise, I didn't flirt with him...