William is in the Jazz Band at our school, and today they had their contest to see if they qualify for State Competition. I’m sure from an outside looking in, this might not seem like a big thing. But to the kids and the parents – it is! Our school has qualified for about the past 25 to 30 years, and now since our band director retired last year, the question is how will we do this year with a new band director? Well today was the day to find out and I am not sure who was more nervous – the kids or the parents. Everyone had their schedules on when the competition was going to happen, and if the other families are like ours, it was up on the refrigerator with a magnet. With the competition later in the morning, Daryl went to look at a planter but was going to get back in plenty of time. He did get home on time and then off to the contest we went. It takes about an hour and a half to the school that they were performing at. When we got to the school, I had to go to the bathroom really bad (too much Diet Coke!) but since we had about 30 minutes to spare – no problem right? When I walked out of the bathroom, Daryl was standing across from me waving his arms and saying ‘Come on‘. What? Well it turned out that the schedule was revised and the kids were playing as we were standing there in the hall. There is one Cardinal Rule in any music contest – You Do Not Open The Doors when they are playing. Yea, like that was going to stop us. We said we were going in and opened the doors and sat down. We just missed the opening introductions, and was able to get to listen to their performance. I can’t even try to explain how bad this would have been if we missed it. We’ve been going to these music contests for the past 12 years and we’ve even gone a couple of years when our kids were too young to be in the band! We’ve even taken off work when the kids were young so they could hear how other bands play. I think it might have almost killed us. Yup, that probably is a good way to say it, we would have just died on the spot! But…. we did make it in time and they did a great job! Needless to say the parents were just as nervous during the day and when they announced who qualified for State Contest… our school did make it! We are proud of all the kids in the band and also the new band director. If he only knew how many of the parents were sitting in those seats holding their breath! Daryl and I are going to organize getting a chartered bus for the kids to go down to the state contest in. They’ve done this the past few years, and it’s really nice for the Jazz Band. They can put their instruments underneath the bus and just hang out with a lot more room in the seats. Otherwise they have to take a school bus, and it just doesn’t give the same room or impression when they pull up to the Jazz Championship. I’ll start making calls tomorrow to find out how to go about this.
With Daryl and I being in a really good mood at this point – over to the large hardware store to get our electrical supplies for this next week. Hopefully on Wednesday our electrician will come and we can get started in the Roadhouse. Humm, I wonder what I should make him for dinner?
Oh, I know exactly what you meant about not opening the door when the competition starts! When our kids were in it, there was always a person standing outside the door and they wouldn’t let anyone in unless it was between performances. They were also the ones who would put up the scores on the outside of the door. Really glad to hear that your band made it to State! Good job!
We were lucky today – no door guards around this time!