I’ve been realizing for the last few days that I needed to do another post, not having done one for about a week and a half. So here it is. I don’t know exactly why I waited so long, but I do know that I’ve always liked to procrastinate, so that might have something to do with it.

The main thing that happened over the last week and a half is that the band went to State. This in and of itself is remarkable, because we’ve never done this before. The Finneytown Marching Band has never gone to state. Okay. So we went to state this year, a two-hour drive. Here’s where it gets interesting.

It was a knd of cold evening, but not too cold, and the stadium lights were shining bright on the band that was on before us. They did some swing music. While we waited for them to finish, we were getting adrenaline rushes like nothing before. We’d been training for this for over four months, and this was the culmination of our entire marching band season. The other band marched off the field, and we marched on.

If we thought we had a lot of adrenaline before, it was nothing compared to what we got as we marched out of preset. Preset is the most intimidating part of a show, in my opinion. I don’t know why, but there’s something about it that starts your heart pumping like Hoover Dam. All the rest of the show, I can handle. And, in fact, I did. I did it pretty well, too. I always screw up just minimally during the opener and then correct it all during the last three songs. That’s what happened there. It was tense the whole time, though. Imagine the feeling you get when you’re riding your bike across a street and a big van comes out from behind a truck, braking with a screech and a honk about five inches from you. Then imagine that feeling for eight straight minutes. That’s the show, boiled down to its raw elements.

I was certainly glad to march off the field and change into my civilian clothes. From the buses where we did that, I went to the stadium and met Dad, who gave me $five to buy a shirt about the competition; then I watched a few more bands from on the bleachers (which were several stories high) while sitting with Kimber and Matt and Krystal. Kimber likes horses; Matt likes computers and stuff; Krystal is deranged. I gave them my personal play-by-play on how the bands out were doing. Then, when it was time for the awards ceremony, we realized we were on the exact opposite side of the field from where we were supposed to be, and while we were on our way to the other bleachers they called out the scores. We got a I.

A I is the highest rating possible. It was nearly unfathomable that Finneytown could come out of nowhere and then get a I, but we still did it. As we found later, we were one of only five class “B” bands out of 22 to get a I. The buses were hard pressed to stay together all the way home.

Besides that, not much happened. Really not very much whatsoever. I’m going to go now. ,Bye’