November 6, 2008

5:30 am


I hardly got any sleep last night. Practice was let out early yesterday due to the show today. At this time on any normal Friday I would be sleeping to six and not heading out the door like I am right now. You see wile all my friends are having their normal Friday morning at our middle school I am not going to school today.

At least not to a middle school. I’m going to high school. Today is a big day for us band geeks. We are competing in our first ever Nationals Competition. We have to be at Cedar Cliff at six am.

This morning is very jam packed. My brother Ben, and I have to go to the store to grab stuff for our lunches. Then our dad is going to drive us to practice. I’m a propy (prop person) so I do not have to do much, but Ben is in guard and he is going to help run the show.

We will leave Cedar Cliff at eight. My dad will also be coming a long for the trip. He is part of truck crew so he gets to come along with us.

6:15 am


Us prop kids were just told by our band director G to stay in the band room. Chris brought a How to Make Parer Airplanes book with him. He says he wants to make all of the planes. The other members are out in the stadium practicing. The other prop kids are waling around the outside.

Chris has just came up with this brilliant idea that we should see how much distance the airplanes can go. We each grab a plane and stand in the doorway and we throw the planes. Little did I know, Chris had bad aim. His airplane ended up on top of the drummers closet. We both knew the on thing you never wanted to do was touch the inside of the drummers closet. So we made a tower with chairs. We put two of the chairs facing each other then balanced one on top of that. With our small tower we were able to rerive the plane.

7:15 am


We just got yelled at for making a chair tower by some teacher I’ve never meet before. Shaynia, one of the four fellow propy came back to check on us and is now defending us against the teacher. I don’t think it worked because we are now on our way to the couslurs office. We have to sit and wait until 7:45. At that time we are going to start heading to the bases. Shaynia forgot her cards today so we were bored out of our minds.

School had started and we are trying to ingure out if they would let us hang the props from the celing in the band room.

7:45 am

Its time to go and get on the buses. The band room is crowed with members trying to grab their cases to pack up their instruments. I grab my bags and head to the door. Guard and props have to share a charter bus with the drummers.

Unfortunately the guard and props have to sit in the front. I take a seat about three rows back. The bus hasn’t been loaded yet so its just me and the shaperons. Chris comes on the bus with a bag that looks to be about half his size. Chris demonstrates that he is not above blond standards by showing he can’t open the compartment above his seat. I thought this was extremely funny, but I decided to stop so he wouldn’t be to embaressed. I opened up the compartment for him.

I think this killed his ego because it only took me one try to get it opened.

8:05 am


We’ve been on the road for five minutes now. My dad is sitting beside me by the window. I’m by the aise. In the seat across form be sits Ben and Chris. I think there playing some Pokemon game on Chris’ DS. Like I should expect less from them. They are guys.

The rest of the bus is quite except for some of the drummers who are drumming. But the band moms are yelling at the to be quite because some people are sleeping. I know my dad is. He is snoring.

Well I’m going to try and sleep because the muffen and apple juice a band mom gave me is making me sleepy.

11:45 am


It’s huge! The stadium I mean. It’s about the size of a cruise ship on land. Bands are already performing. I can see them on the Jumbo tron. The turf level is well below ground level. The stands are so huge. The people are only seating people in one side.

12:15 pm


We are under the stands waiting to go on. I have old red with me. That is what I called the bike I ride in the beginning of the show. Butterflies are flying around in my stomach. This is it. Our last show of the year.

Mr. Moyer is already mad. Apparentally one the the wheels on my wing prop is flat. He is just going to have to deal with it because here comes in the other band who was just performing. The pits are moving. I hand off old red to my dad and grab my black poll to help Shaynia put our wing into place.

I looked behind me to see Madison and Merissa with the fusloge of the Wright brother’s flyer. They seem like if we don’t get this right we won’t be allowed back in this stadium. Behind them is Chris and James with the other wing. We all are scared out of our socks. Then it hits me. Just as our prop hits the turf the nervous pee comes. To late now. Shaynia and are running to get our wing onto the oposing thirty yard line. The turf we are running on is the most compacted of the season.

I looked up at the Jumbo tron in front of me.

“There is Cedar Cliff High School from Camp Hill, Pa. Group 3 open.”

Its show time. I run to the opening we just came out of to meet my dad with old red. As I run I hear the band’s fan club (our parents and other family members). Our abnormal large group of supporters now look small because of the size of this stadium. Nerves are through the roof. Which is weird because this stadium doesn’t have a rood.

I grab old red from my dad and get in to my place. It isn’t until the annoucer anouces us that we start to get into the show settings. Tyler (the kid in front of me) starts his drumming that starts off the show. I push down on the pedal of old red. Here comes the fun part, leading the band into their show.

I swayed my way across the field. Shaynia is their acting as if she is fixing the plane. I ride around the back of the wind and park my bike. Then I join Shaynia in fixing our wing. Here comes the second movement. We start to move towards the back of the fifty yard lin to join up with the others.

The wings aren’t in place yet. They are vertical to the fasaloge. There it comes our big moment that we haven’t nailed all season. One...two...three! Yes! We nailed it!

The plane has been built! Now we rotate the perplers and push it up into the closing sequence. The show is done. The people in the stands are standing. Even the other bands. What a way to end the season.

We all walked out of the stadium relieved that our first time in the Navy Marien Stadium wasn’t a total flop. G, the band director gathers us together and ask us how our personal show was. We all cheered believing in our selfs tat the performance was the best show we have ever had. It truely was. Can you imagine doing the same events in the same order for nine months straight and always getting something wrong? It sucks, but the last time you do it you don’t get any flaw ar all.

It is a great feeling. It is the feeling that if you would jump of a high tower and fly. Yet once you get that feeling it is hard to repeat it.

1:00 pm


Award time. We are sitting in the stands. The other bands are around us. They are still talking about our show, yet they don’t know it is us. Here comes the seniors in through the tunnel. I was proud of myself for helping in making their last show a blast. There are people cheering all around me.

The annoucerr starts the awards, he starts at the 28th place. It wasn’t us. I was excited. It was my first year in this circit and we didn’t get last. Then comes along 27th place. Again we weren’t picked. The annoucer goes through the places. I get excited each time he doesn’t call our names.

The annoucer gets to fifth place and I am just about jumping out of my seat. He tells the crowd that there is only a .5 difference between first and fifth. There were probably the closest scores I have ever heard in my life. He calls fifth place and it wasn’t us. I start questioning if maybe we could be first place. I started thinking that I was dreaming. Could it be possible that we could be first place? Those seven foot trophies look really awesome.

He has called third place and it still wasn’t us. then comes second. I scream because it wasn’t us. The band rule for competitions is only clap when your band is called. But when the man said,

“And in first pace with a score of 98.9, 98.9, the first place goes to Cedar Cliff high school!

I tried hard not to scream but like everyone else I couldn’t hold it in. It was so unbelieveable when I walked out of the stadium. I felt like someone famous walking on the red carpet.

4:00 pm


In line for food people kept treating us like we were stars. A drummer has just cut in front of an old lady. She goes to yell at him but when she sees the Wright’s brother t-shirt she lets him cut. They thought we were stars. It had been an exciting day and it still wasn’t over yet. We still had to go home.

7:00 pm


As a treat we went to Dave and Busters for some time off. Unfortunately the time had to end and we had to get back on the bus to go to school.

9:00 pm


We are all back in the buses except the instructors. The band moms went back to see if they can find them. The instructors were busy watching G on a motorcycle racing game. Who would have thought?

11:30 pm



We have just pulled into the side of the road by the Fishing Creek exit on 83. The bus is now awake. We have no clue on what is going on. We see fire trucks, police, and ambulances coming forn the ramp. They surround us. Just as the bus heads to pull out they all turn their lights and syrons on as loud as they could. The people who lived by 83 probably hate us now. We were being escorted back to school.

That was amazing! we all come up with the idea to ride through Mechcanicsburg. We are all in the state of amazement to find that they have closed the roads and the highway for us. We were all excited when we saw our parents cheering in the school parking lot.

That night we were all rock stars. That season will never fade in Cedar Cliff marching band history forever. It was the season we owned the show, put a lot of work, and got rewarded for it.