Dear Lulu,
You have been playing the flute since 7th grade. You don't have the nicest flute, in fact most teachers tell you that you need to get a better one. You don't have a private flute teacher. But you are rocking it at the flute! It took a lot of hard work at the beginning to learn the flute, and then it took a lot of hard work to learn the marching band show song when you joined last summer. Not only were the notes hard, but it's an 8 minute show that needed to memorized. AND you had to learn where your spot was on the field and where to go next. In order for all of this to come together with the whole marching band, you had marching practice after school almost every day of the week.
Mondays and Thursdays you stayed after until 6. On Wednesdays I picked you up at 6:30, and Tuesdays was sectional so you were done at 4. When there was a home football game on Fridays the band played, and most Saturdays you had a competition. Joining marching band is a commitment of time and energy for sure. The weather was freaking hot, like in the 100's and 90's all summer, all August and September. I think you had about 2 weeks of perfect weather before it got freezing for your last October practices. Crazy! Saturday competitions took at least half of the day and you often got home at midnight.
Needless to say, I am really proud with your dedication to marching band. I was so proud when you performed at the parent preview night that I almost cried. The show looked and sounded so good! It was hard to spot you from the bleachers when everyone has their matching hats on. I knew that you lead a whole line, a fact you were proud of since this was your first year, and when I saw the flutes marching out in a line toward me, I picked you out. You were the leader and doing a bang up job at it. After that I could see you leading your line, shaking your hips, and keeping time like a pro at every show that we saw, in person or on the videos. We didn't go to many competitions actually, just the parent preview, homecoming, and the Davis Cup, but that didn't mean Dad and I weren't proud. Man, was I a proud Mama. Which is kind of funny because that is the marching band's motto: Make Your Mama Proud. Here are some performance pictures, some I took, some from the band photographer, and some from the professional Bands of America photographers:
You loved getting to know all of the other flute players in the band. There is a special connection within each section of band, with inside jokes and silliness and the pride after all the hard work. The flutes did secret sister gifts sometimes and you even ordered a sweatshirt with all of your names on the back. Here are some pictures of you and your fellow flautists:
You liked your uniform. You thought the shiny outfits were pretty sharp, and the hats, called shakos, are super fancy. See the plume on top? You had to earn that by passing off your music and then at each performance someone wearing gloves had to put the plume on the shako and take it off:
Your high school consistently did well at competitions and you got second place at Davis Cup, State, and region! You loved cheering with your band when you got your scores at the end of the competitions. What a high that must have felt like after all the hard work. Here's the whole band:
Now that it's over, you are a little sad. You miss the camaraderie and the laughs, but you still have the pictures people uploaded to a google space and you love to look at them. You already know that you want to do this next year and you're signed up to march in a parade in Washington DC in May! There are lots of good times still to come.
Thanks for trying something new and maybe intimidating since you didn't know any flutes in the band. Thanks for working hard. I'm so happy you found a place to fit in and a good group of kids to bond with. That's what makes high school fun!
Love, Mom
