Battle of the Bands

This morning at soccer, Christine McC mentioned that she was going to take her boys to a marching band competition at a nearby high school. They used to live right by this high school, and she remembered taking her boys then. It was free, and they loved the big drums and horns. We thought that sounded like a fun thing, so after naps, we loaded everyone up and headed out.

As we turned into the high school, we saw a sign that mentioned "tickets", which made us think that perhaps this event was not free after all. This concerned us, as we had only $1.00 cash on us, but we decided to park and see what the price was. The lot was really full and crowded, but we miraculously spotted Christine's van and pulled in next to them. With her 4 boys and all our kids, we were quite the procession. We trouped up to the ticket window . . . where we saw that tickets were $11.00 a person. $11.00!!!! What?! For high school kids?!! We asked if kids got in free. Well, just those 5 and under, which certainly helps, but we were still looking at $44.00 for our family. I don't think so! We told the boys we were not going to go, and so we wandered over to the fence to look at the band that was lining up to march in. They had a cool, medieval theme going on, and their (not sure of the word here) flag girls? even had shields with crests on them. As we were talking about the band, a lady from the ticket booth came over to talk to us. As it turned out, she was from a family of 10 kids, and so she said she knew how hard it was to find things to take the whole family to when you have a large family. She told us that if we paid for 4 tickets, she would get all of us (including Christine and her kids) in. Christine saw that as a direct sign from the Lord, as she also would have had to pay $44 (her third boy has already turned 6), and she only had $22. So Christine gave us her $22, and we put the 4 tickets on our credit card. The lady said we were all with her, and marched us right past the ticket takers! It was amazing how it all worked out, even to meeting up with Christine in the parking lot. I don't think the lady would have really paid as much attention to just our family, but the 10 kids made a bigger impression.

So we watched 2 hours of the competition, and it was really fun! We all agreed that the first band we saw, the ones with the medieval theme, were the best. The girls even had this fake battle with pugel sticks! After awhile, I started idly wondering what a school would do if a boy said he wanted to be one of the flag girls. I mean in this day and age, it's not like you could tell him that frankly that is a wussy thing to do, and we'd rather just have girls. The very next band up did in fact have a boy as one of the flag people! The girls all wore velvet costumes, and he wore pants and a t-shirt with suspenders. And you know what, he looked like a real wussy. That cheesy big fake smile, the head thrown way back, the very expressive face, the huge flag--yeah. Not real masculine, gliding around the field with mincing little steps. The flag group as a whole was very good though, with a more complex routine than some of the other bands.

Some of the bands even had girls twirling batons! Christine and I were both surprised at that--we thought that was something that went out with the 70's! The ones that were out there were really good, and I didn't see anyone drop a baton the whole time. One girl even juggled 3 of them! I think I would be so terribly self-conscious to be prancing around in basically a swim suit and hose. Weird concept.

After the sun went down, it got kind of chilly, and we hadn't eaten any dinner, so we headed out. We left at 7:30, and there were still 11 more bands to go! Those people are going to be there all night! This was a bigger competition than I think Christine knew (hence the ridiculously inflated ticket prices), and bands were there from all over VA and MD. It was good to get out and see something different, and I think we definitely had $22 worth of fun (but not $44, LOL)!