Jamboree

There's something I want to tell you, but I don't know quite how to say it.

No. It's not bad news -- far from it. But I don't know how to make a good story out of it. I don't know how to make it musical (so to speak) in the telling.

So let me just tell it, and then I'll go to bed.

When we got there on Friday Tuesday afternoon, we could hear the bands from a long way off. Inside the stadium they blasted their music as they warmed up. Beating drums. Blaring trumpets. Band after marching band was on the football field in their hot-weather uniforms.

The afternoon sun's light reflected off all the brass -- the sousaphones especially, rank after rank of them in silver and gold.

Directors shouted directions and waved their arms in synchrony for all the kids to see. Some marched in place. Many swaggered with glee. They all held their instruments proudly.

And here's the thing of it...

Amid the brass and percussion. Amid the woodwinds and waving flags. Standing somewhere in the teeming mass of marching band marchers and directing directors, there was a handful of new kids. Kids who had just come into town. Transfer students.

Last week, they fled New Orleans. This week they marched amid the colors with the bands in the sun on a on a field in a stadium with music all around them.

That's the story I wanted to tell.

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33rd Annual AISD Marching Band Jamboree
Austin, TX

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