What Your Mother Never Told You About Marching Band
author unknown

Those horrible, hot days at summer band.
Rehearsing drill until your legs burn.
Doing the show until you are positively sick
of the Band Director saying "let's do it just one more time."
Loading and unloading instruments,
Carrying flags and rifles on and off the field
with the timing of military offensive, day after day after day.
Ice to relieve bruises on wrists,
Foreheads,
Ankles.
Swollen lips.
Doing push-ups.
Standing at attention for five more minutes then you can bear.
Sunburn.
Wanting to sell your soul for five more minutes of sleep.
Flags in the face, rifle in the ribs.
Wanting to give it all up and join the chess club.
Hearing the show music in your sleep.
Sectional.
Heartburn.
Heartbreak.
Drumming on everything in sight.
Tossing anything you can pick up.
Thinking marching band was a stupid way to get out of p.e.
Realizing color guard looks a lot easier than it is.
Wondering what happened to your life.
Eating dinner in the car while changing clothes and doing homework.
Lost shoes and mouth pieces.
Long underwear under your uniform and icy wind in your face.
Learning the fine art of sleeping on the bus.
Tears and teasing.
Learning you have over 200 new brothers and sisters who stick by you through
thick
And thin.
Knowing you have 400 new parents who will cheer for you, no matter what.
Laughing with others and learning more about yourself than you ever knew.
Thinking the show will never work.
And then,
Finally,
It all comes together and you have achieved perfection,
Drumming your hands off and playing your brains out and
tossing higher than the sky.
A slice of time in the stadium when everyone cheers and your mom cries and
pictures get taken and once,
Just once,
You have the world in your hands.
And the band marches out of the stadium and down the parking lot,
Always together whether it's success or not,
And you know by the feeling in your heart
it doesn't get any better than this.
And you know if your Band Director asks you to turn around and
"do it just one more time, a little better."
You would.