Drum Corps

On the last day of practice before we left for tour, there we were, marching in the hot sun in July. When most people would be sitting inside their houses watching television and eating ice cream, we were not. Oh no, not us. We were marching our butts off. "Do that last set again, and don't let me see your horns dropping!" And so we did. The tempo was one-eighty, and most of us had to jazz run across the field in huge leaping steps like a ballerina dancer to get anywhere even close to our spots. "No! At least six of your horns dropped to parallel! Everyone, twenty push ups!" The drummers and pit people got on their knee's, too.1

"Now, let's try it one more time. If we can't get it right, then we are NOT going to finals! You hear me? NO FINALS!!!" Needless to say, we made it through that practice. As we gathered up our stuff, it seemed to me that we had all changed somehow. Listening to sixty people breathing hard, I felt sort of united. Like a family. When we first started this thing, none of even knew each other. We had come along way. "Hey, London. I heard your mom called..." my friend Kim told me as I passed by; putting my baritone in the truck. I groaned, of course, but since I would be leaving the next day, I figured that I should call her back. I walked over to the gym where we have been crashing the last couple of nights and even though it wasn't my school, I would truly miss it.2

I had grown to love everything about drum corps, can't you notice? I went through the double doors, with Kim following me, and heard a mom who was going on tour with us yell over to me. "Your phone rang. I looked at it, and it said Mommy." I looked at her and she was smiling like she thought it was nice that I still called her that and then I sighed- that must have been my little sister's doing. I would change that right after talking with my mom. "Hey, mom? Yea...I'm fine...How's Jesse?...Yea, we're leaving tomorrow, duh! I told you that a million times...yea, okay...uh-huh...okay, mom...okay!...okay...sure, love you, too-bye." And that's how most conversations went with her. Wonderful. "Her soap opera on?" Kim asked. "Yup," I said. "That's why she called in the middle of practice even though she knew we were in the middle of practice-hoping I'd be out or something; ugh." Kim and I started walking towards the 'dining hall', which is the school cafeteria. "Which one is it this time? Days of our lives?"3

I nodded, thinking about something other than that, though. My mother had TiVo. Yet, that happens. Why? "Oh, not again!" Kim stared at me. "You are thinking that it's your fault...grrr! Stop it!!!! It wasn't!" And then she dragged me to get food. We sat down at an empty table with our plates and she says, "It was all your dad, London, okay?" She dug into her salad. "That's why you joined this corps, remember? To get away from all that crap at home." I looked at Kim. "It's become something bigger than getting away from my non-existent, yet perfect but not perfect family. It has become into..." I sat there trying to think of a word, when someone sat down at the table next to me. "Has it become into an obsession? It has for me..." After he said that, I knew. I knew I was in love with music. Not just music, but drum corps itself. It had actually helped me move on with my life, and I was very grateful for that and would miss it when the summer was over.4

But the summer had just began. I dug into my own salad, wishing that the next day would just come already. Tour? Here we come!