The idea for this post was off a board I visit.
This one time at band camp...........well we never actually had a band camp. But yes, I was a band geek and proud of it. Without band, I would not have survived high school.
All 450 of us band members were together every day for 2 hours - one hour during school and 1 hour after school, for all 4 years. During the winter the hour after school was divided into sections and we worked on our concert material. During the fall and spring we worked on marching and football halftime programs. This was in addition to games, jazz band, orchestra, musicals, concerts, competitions, etc and was year round. We always traveled one week a year during the summer. Now those trips were my 'band camp'.
There were always funny things happening on those trips. We didn't fly - we took coach style buses. Now getting a seat on that bus was actually what I think was the only fair thing at the school. We had to EARN our place on that bus. There were 450 of us and only 300 went on the trips so competition was pretty heavy. We always seemed to get into trouble. My freshman year we went to DC and toured the battle grounds in PA, historical homes in MD, NJ, etc. I was pretty innocent during that year. No - really I was but I was a quick learner.
The next year was a trip to Canada and Niagara Falls. I guess there had been some 'problems' the prior year and so they split up all the kids - 4 to a room and each room contained one each from each year. I was put in with this senior who was in the popular crowd and who talked me into escaping the room after lights out to go to the party room. We couldn't go into the hallway since that was where the chaperones were patrolling. So inventive me, anxious to be with the cool kids, tied sheets together and we went out the window (we were on the 2nd floor). Had a blast that year. Somehow (I didn't do it and won't acknowledge I had any part of it), a size 44DDD bra was put on the flagpole...and that was only one of the things that initiated me into what goes on behind the scenes during these trips and during rehearsals.
The next 2 years we went to Disney in FL and by this time I learned the ways to dodge the chaperones. We were hungry so I ordered a pizza, conned a taxi driver to pick it up and deliver it to the hotel room all without "touching a toenail outside your room rule". I think it was that year that I got introduced to alcohol too - Southern Comfort in the boys bathroom during pep band for the basketball game. Let's just say the instruments were not safe from me stumbling back up to where I was sitting.
Now band is where all my high school memories are. In band, I became a person and not the teacher's daughter who was a geek, got good grades, was always teacher's pets (actually had blackmail info on them from attending parties at my parent's house or things I found in their house while babysitting their kids) and the geek who wore horned rimmed cat eye glasses.
