Encore Concert

Well, here's another event to add to my "last time" series of events this year. Daughter No. 2 performed in her last marching band concert, an encore performance during which the band plays music from their half-time shows. It's a big, raucous show with full-volume percussion and dancing tubas and everyone playing as if they were on the football field.

When I was a kid, I used to cry at parades because the drums in the marching bands would pound inside my heart and scare the life out of me. I loved the horses and clowns and candy, but the bands gave me agita.

It wasn't until I joined the band at age ten and spent an entire marching season playing cymbals in the percussion section that I came to love that heart-pounding sensation. Now, I like the feeling, which is good because when a 150-piece marching band plays indoors, you get plenty of it.

During this concert, band members volunteer to perform band choreography up front--here is Daughter No. 2 going out with a bang. Ignore the sequined girls in the front—the real star is up on stage on the far left.