quadz08
Smash Cadet
This is my first revised version! Any comments or critiques would be much appreciated! And with that, off we go!
Have you ever had a dream pulled away from you, like a piece of turf yanked cruelly from under your feet by the hands of fate?
Have you ever seen six months of hard work, of blood, sweat, and tears, of passion and pain, of emotion and fury, and, most of all, love, just crumble in front of you?
Have you ever been in a room so full of disbelief and sadness that people walking nearby stop laughing and smiling because it feels so awkward?
Have you ever sat on a hard tile floor with 200 people experiencing every one of those things, listening to the man in charge, the head honcho, el jefe, the leader of the pack, apologize for what he inadvertently did? Seen him nearly break down? This man, who is so respected, and so well-loved, and so wise and kind and friendly and seemingly invulnerable to such petty things as mistakes...
Have you ever?
I have.
It started the summer before my junior year in high school, like it always did. There were thirteen of us at the beginning. Thirteen of us, standing in the June desert sun, internally praying for a break, for a relax command, an opportunity to put down our marching drums, to sit, to move, to get water. The blacktop reflected the heat, burning us from above and below. We were yelled at, corrected, cut off in mid-warmup.
Yet still we played, the drumsticks bouncing off our drums, our feet pumping like pistons, the click of the percussion instructor’s sticks driving the pulse through our skulls. Our backs were aching, our feet were hurting, our legs were tired, our forearms were numb, but we kept playing.
3 hours a day. 3 days a week. For a month and a half we endured the grueling repetition. We participated in the voluntary torture we like to call “Summer Drumline Rehearsal.”
Why, you ask?
Well, for one, we’re all completely crazy. But more importantly, we cared. For the first time in a long time, the drumline cared how good the band would be. We wanted to do well. We wanted, so badly, to go to state competition. We were ready. We had a unique show and awesome players to perform it. We knew we could do it. We were going to do it.
But first we had to practice.
Even after the brutality that was summer drumline, the band gods saw fit to punish us further: Summer Band. It was summer drumline, except with an added three hours of marching practice in the morning, about 180 more people, and enough drama to make any telenovela look like the food network. Call it high school hell on earth, plus clarinet players. We did marching basics, my third year of them, over and over and over until we were dreaming “PUSH!-TAY!-ONE!-TWO!-THREE!-TONDU!-CLOSE!” We marched forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally, and, I swear to you, I prayed every year Mr. Beach, the band director, didn’t try to teach us to do it all upside-down. After about two or three weeks of the basics, we began to learn drill.
Drill. Ooh, that dirty word. Just hearing it was enough to strike fear into any sophomore or junior in marching band. Seniors looked down at us and laughed. Freshmen... well, they were confused, as usual. Learning drill, you see, consists of being given an index card. On this index card there are five columns: “Set Number,” which is kind of like a page number in a book – it tells you what point in the show you are at; “Counts,” which tells you how many beats you have to reach that set – and is completely disregarded and changed by the directors nearly every set; “Side,” which tells you which side of the field you’re on in relation to the fifty-yard line; “Position,” which tells you which yard line you are near, and how many steps away from it you should be – which would be difficult if it weren’t for the litany of dots spread across our practice field in precise intervals; and… something else nobody pays attention to. Essentially, the process involved a lot of wandering, people bumping into each other, frustration on everyone’s part, and eventually some sort of shape emerged. Of course, it’s quite rare that this shape is something even remotely recognizable, so we just tried to keep the lines straight.
So drill proceeded for the last hellish week or two of summer band, until, finally, school began. School had pros and cons; pro was the hour and a half band practices, con was them being at seven o’ clock in the morning. If you’re in band, you become a morning person. Quickly.
Practices were what you’d expect. Some drama, some mischief, some stupidity, but most days, a lot got done. Of course, each practice went by slower than frozen molasses, yet the season as a whole seemed to shorten remarkably quickly. Football games, which inevitably included the snare line’s stupid shenanigans, bus rides, always full of the most ridiculous songs anyone could remember the words to, minor competitions, which always drew our scorn because of the lack of competitive rankings, all of them sped by faster than a bullet train on steroids.
Then, suddenly, it was the week we were all waiting for.
It was the week of Regionals. This was the competition that would send us to State. In order to get into Regional Finals, all we had to do was get a Division I, the highest ranking. This was a typically easy feat; we had never gotten any less than Division I in any competition.
We arrived at the competition site in time for Mr. Beach to speak to us. He told us how proud he was of us. He told us he knew how hard we had worked for this, and he knew we were good enough to make it. He said he was confident in us, he believed in us. He spoke as if he were having a private conversation with each one of us, this man with the graying hair and the too-short shorts and the ridiculous hats. He was the man who had driven us to do this, and we wanted to do it for him. Mr. Beach had been a friend, teacher, and father figure in equal parts for all of us. Nobody wanted to let him down. And today, it seemed, we most definitely wouldn’t.
He finished his speech, and we walked, single file, into the stadium, where we formed our marching block. We looked up into the surprisingly full stands and around at each other. We knew that this was our show. Tonight was our night. We knew we could do it. We were going to State.
We began to march onto the turf, the top bass drummer playing taps. As we marched onto the field, we heard the announcer reading the speech given to him by our director. “Franklin Star of the West Band…” The drum majors performed their salute, and the block spread apart into the first set of the show. “Through the Eyes of a Child…” That first set that we had learned so long ago, back in the boiling summer sun. “Directed by…” All the hard work, all the blood, sweat, and tears, all the passion and pain, all the emotion and fury, and, most of all, the love that we had poured into this show for the past semester and the summer before, it all culminated here. “Guard Captains are…” This is why we did it. “Drum Majors are…” This is what made it all worthwhile.
And finally, after what could have been an eternity: “Franklin High School. You may take the field, in competition.”
We looked up at the head drum major. Her hands began to move. Five-tay-six... push-tay-one!!!
And so it began.
It was the glorious sound of two hundred instruments blaring forth, being played by two hundred students playing their very souls to the crowd. Sound radiated outwards with flawless rhythm and tempo. We could feel it down through the marrow of our bones. It was incredible. The show swirled through our minds, the long-memorized notes and steps flowing easily from our brains to our bodies. We were as those possessed, because possessed we were. The show had taken over, and it was glorious. We hardly had to think, merely to watch and listen. It was like we were a machine, greased and oiled to be spotless. We flew across the field, a musical dervish whirling through each set. As we finished the show and pulled our feet into closed position, we discovered we could breathe again. We stood stock-still, staring forward into space.
And it was over. Within that show had been a short time where there was no time; it had lasted a lifetime, yet was over in an instant. We marched triumphantly off the field, once again to the taps of the top bass drummer. We knew we were in finals. We knew it. We had never performed as well as we had that night, and there was no way we weren’t getting a Division I. As we walked back to the buses to put our hats and instruments away, a current rippled through the air. It was a tangible feeling of confidence and comfort; it was excitement and energy bouncing among all 200 of us.
We began walking back to the stadium, to sit in the back bleachers and watch the remaining bands perform. It was then that the first whispers of worry reached my ears…
I thought I heard the alarm go off during the last note…
My mom said we went overtime…
Mr. Beach looks worried about something…
But no, we all thought. We couldn’t have gone overtime. Our show had been timed meticulously. We had never gone over the allotted eight minutes before; how could we have tonight? Maybe he was hearing things, and her mom was wrong, and Mr. Beach was worried because we were running low on water bottles. And besides, who was the timekeeper to take away what we had done that night? We had created a masterpiece worthy of all the hard work we had put in.
Hadn’t we?
And then, suddenly, the final band had finished, and the announcer began reading the results. “Coronado High School….. Division…. I.” All the drum majors from every band were lined up on the front sideline, ready to receive the plaques for their band. “Hanks High School….. Division…. I.” We looked around at each other, seeing mirror images of our emotions on our bandmates’ faces. “El Dorado High School….. Division…. I.” The confidence mingled with nervousness, the excitement combined with dread. “Mountain View High School…. Division…. I.” No matter how well we felt we had done, we all knew it was the judges who decided our fate. “Eastwood High School…. Division…. I.” What would they think? “Montwood High School…. Division…. II.” Did they like it, or were we overestimating our own abilities? “Andress High School…. Division…. I.” Or could we have really gone overtime? “Franklin High School….”
This was it. The moment our entire season would culminate in. The band linked arms, awaiting the announcement.
“Division….”
It seemed as though hours flew between each word. We strained, leaning forward, as if it would make the words come to our ears faster.
“Due to time violation,”
No…
“Division II.”
That was it. We were out.
And as if we hadn’t been shocked enough already, the reason we had gone overtime was the equivalent of a sucker punch to the gut. We really had been perfect; the speech submitted by Mr. Beach had been too long.
That was all it was.
The **** speech was too long. We had gone overtime by seven seconds. Because the band director had submitted a speech that was too long. But we couldn’t be angry with him. We couldn’t. As he broke the news to us the next day, he told us of how terrible he felt because of it. He knew it was his responsibility to make sure we finished in time, and he had failed. He was close to breaking down, and the room was just absolutely filled with disbelief and sadness. You could hear students’ teardrops hitting the floor between Mr. Beach’s words. He had appealed to the state board for fine arts; he had no luck. We weren’t going to State, in the first year we really could have. And there was nothing we could have done to change it.
Have you ever felt those things?
I have.
Have you ever had a dream pulled away from you, like a piece of turf yanked cruelly from under your feet by the hands of fate?
Have you ever seen six months of hard work, of blood, sweat, and tears, of passion and pain, of emotion and fury, and, most of all, love, just crumble in front of you?
Have you ever been in a room so full of disbelief and sadness that people walking nearby stop laughing and smiling because it feels so awkward?
Have you ever sat on a hard tile floor with 200 people experiencing every one of those things, listening to the man in charge, the head honcho, el jefe, the leader of the pack, apologize for what he inadvertently did? Seen him nearly break down? This man, who is so respected, and so well-loved, and so wise and kind and friendly and seemingly invulnerable to such petty things as mistakes...
Have you ever?
I have.
It started the summer before my junior year in high school, like it always did. There were thirteen of us at the beginning. Thirteen of us, standing in the June desert sun, internally praying for a break, for a relax command, an opportunity to put down our marching drums, to sit, to move, to get water. The blacktop reflected the heat, burning us from above and below. We were yelled at, corrected, cut off in mid-warmup.
Yet still we played, the drumsticks bouncing off our drums, our feet pumping like pistons, the click of the percussion instructor’s sticks driving the pulse through our skulls. Our backs were aching, our feet were hurting, our legs were tired, our forearms were numb, but we kept playing.
3 hours a day. 3 days a week. For a month and a half we endured the grueling repetition. We participated in the voluntary torture we like to call “Summer Drumline Rehearsal.”
Why, you ask?
Well, for one, we’re all completely crazy. But more importantly, we cared. For the first time in a long time, the drumline cared how good the band would be. We wanted to do well. We wanted, so badly, to go to state competition. We were ready. We had a unique show and awesome players to perform it. We knew we could do it. We were going to do it.
But first we had to practice.
Even after the brutality that was summer drumline, the band gods saw fit to punish us further: Summer Band. It was summer drumline, except with an added three hours of marching practice in the morning, about 180 more people, and enough drama to make any telenovela look like the food network. Call it high school hell on earth, plus clarinet players. We did marching basics, my third year of them, over and over and over until we were dreaming “PUSH!-TAY!-ONE!-TWO!-THREE!-TONDU!-CLOSE!” We marched forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally, and, I swear to you, I prayed every year Mr. Beach, the band director, didn’t try to teach us to do it all upside-down. After about two or three weeks of the basics, we began to learn drill.
Drill. Ooh, that dirty word. Just hearing it was enough to strike fear into any sophomore or junior in marching band. Seniors looked down at us and laughed. Freshmen... well, they were confused, as usual. Learning drill, you see, consists of being given an index card. On this index card there are five columns: “Set Number,” which is kind of like a page number in a book – it tells you what point in the show you are at; “Counts,” which tells you how many beats you have to reach that set – and is completely disregarded and changed by the directors nearly every set; “Side,” which tells you which side of the field you’re on in relation to the fifty-yard line; “Position,” which tells you which yard line you are near, and how many steps away from it you should be – which would be difficult if it weren’t for the litany of dots spread across our practice field in precise intervals; and… something else nobody pays attention to. Essentially, the process involved a lot of wandering, people bumping into each other, frustration on everyone’s part, and eventually some sort of shape emerged. Of course, it’s quite rare that this shape is something even remotely recognizable, so we just tried to keep the lines straight.
So drill proceeded for the last hellish week or two of summer band, until, finally, school began. School had pros and cons; pro was the hour and a half band practices, con was them being at seven o’ clock in the morning. If you’re in band, you become a morning person. Quickly.
Practices were what you’d expect. Some drama, some mischief, some stupidity, but most days, a lot got done. Of course, each practice went by slower than frozen molasses, yet the season as a whole seemed to shorten remarkably quickly. Football games, which inevitably included the snare line’s stupid shenanigans, bus rides, always full of the most ridiculous songs anyone could remember the words to, minor competitions, which always drew our scorn because of the lack of competitive rankings, all of them sped by faster than a bullet train on steroids.
Then, suddenly, it was the week we were all waiting for.
It was the week of Regionals. This was the competition that would send us to State. In order to get into Regional Finals, all we had to do was get a Division I, the highest ranking. This was a typically easy feat; we had never gotten any less than Division I in any competition.
We arrived at the competition site in time for Mr. Beach to speak to us. He told us how proud he was of us. He told us he knew how hard we had worked for this, and he knew we were good enough to make it. He said he was confident in us, he believed in us. He spoke as if he were having a private conversation with each one of us, this man with the graying hair and the too-short shorts and the ridiculous hats. He was the man who had driven us to do this, and we wanted to do it for him. Mr. Beach had been a friend, teacher, and father figure in equal parts for all of us. Nobody wanted to let him down. And today, it seemed, we most definitely wouldn’t.
He finished his speech, and we walked, single file, into the stadium, where we formed our marching block. We looked up into the surprisingly full stands and around at each other. We knew that this was our show. Tonight was our night. We knew we could do it. We were going to State.
We began to march onto the turf, the top bass drummer playing taps. As we marched onto the field, we heard the announcer reading the speech given to him by our director. “Franklin Star of the West Band…” The drum majors performed their salute, and the block spread apart into the first set of the show. “Through the Eyes of a Child…” That first set that we had learned so long ago, back in the boiling summer sun. “Directed by…” All the hard work, all the blood, sweat, and tears, all the passion and pain, all the emotion and fury, and, most of all, the love that we had poured into this show for the past semester and the summer before, it all culminated here. “Guard Captains are…” This is why we did it. “Drum Majors are…” This is what made it all worthwhile.
And finally, after what could have been an eternity: “Franklin High School. You may take the field, in competition.”
We looked up at the head drum major. Her hands began to move. Five-tay-six... push-tay-one!!!
And so it began.
It was the glorious sound of two hundred instruments blaring forth, being played by two hundred students playing their very souls to the crowd. Sound radiated outwards with flawless rhythm and tempo. We could feel it down through the marrow of our bones. It was incredible. The show swirled through our minds, the long-memorized notes and steps flowing easily from our brains to our bodies. We were as those possessed, because possessed we were. The show had taken over, and it was glorious. We hardly had to think, merely to watch and listen. It was like we were a machine, greased and oiled to be spotless. We flew across the field, a musical dervish whirling through each set. As we finished the show and pulled our feet into closed position, we discovered we could breathe again. We stood stock-still, staring forward into space.
And it was over. Within that show had been a short time where there was no time; it had lasted a lifetime, yet was over in an instant. We marched triumphantly off the field, once again to the taps of the top bass drummer. We knew we were in finals. We knew it. We had never performed as well as we had that night, and there was no way we weren’t getting a Division I. As we walked back to the buses to put our hats and instruments away, a current rippled through the air. It was a tangible feeling of confidence and comfort; it was excitement and energy bouncing among all 200 of us.
We began walking back to the stadium, to sit in the back bleachers and watch the remaining bands perform. It was then that the first whispers of worry reached my ears…
I thought I heard the alarm go off during the last note…
My mom said we went overtime…
Mr. Beach looks worried about something…
But no, we all thought. We couldn’t have gone overtime. Our show had been timed meticulously. We had never gone over the allotted eight minutes before; how could we have tonight? Maybe he was hearing things, and her mom was wrong, and Mr. Beach was worried because we were running low on water bottles. And besides, who was the timekeeper to take away what we had done that night? We had created a masterpiece worthy of all the hard work we had put in.
Hadn’t we?
And then, suddenly, the final band had finished, and the announcer began reading the results. “Coronado High School….. Division…. I.” All the drum majors from every band were lined up on the front sideline, ready to receive the plaques for their band. “Hanks High School….. Division…. I.” We looked around at each other, seeing mirror images of our emotions on our bandmates’ faces. “El Dorado High School….. Division…. I.” The confidence mingled with nervousness, the excitement combined with dread. “Mountain View High School…. Division…. I.” No matter how well we felt we had done, we all knew it was the judges who decided our fate. “Eastwood High School…. Division…. I.” What would they think? “Montwood High School…. Division…. II.” Did they like it, or were we overestimating our own abilities? “Andress High School…. Division…. I.” Or could we have really gone overtime? “Franklin High School….”
This was it. The moment our entire season would culminate in. The band linked arms, awaiting the announcement.
“Division….”
It seemed as though hours flew between each word. We strained, leaning forward, as if it would make the words come to our ears faster.
“Due to time violation,”
No…
“Division II.”
That was it. We were out.
And as if we hadn’t been shocked enough already, the reason we had gone overtime was the equivalent of a sucker punch to the gut. We really had been perfect; the speech submitted by Mr. Beach had been too long.
That was all it was.
The **** speech was too long. We had gone overtime by seven seconds. Because the band director had submitted a speech that was too long. But we couldn’t be angry with him. We couldn’t. As he broke the news to us the next day, he told us of how terrible he felt because of it. He knew it was his responsibility to make sure we finished in time, and he had failed. He was close to breaking down, and the room was just absolutely filled with disbelief and sadness. You could hear students’ teardrops hitting the floor between Mr. Beach’s words. He had appealed to the state board for fine arts; he had no luck. We weren’t going to State, in the first year we really could have. And there was nothing we could have done to change it.
Have you ever felt those things?
I have.
