'Merica!

This one time at band camp....

I had gotten little sleep the night before. I had a sunburn that hurt like a burn on my skin from the sun, and to add to that, I had to get up early. Which is not something I like to make a habit of. My muscles were really hurting more than usual for some reason, I was thirsty... complain complain.... In any case, my defenses were severely down. It was mainly due to exhaust, but I think I started going crazy.

I like to think that everything we do in marching band, we do for a reason. Maybe a sound reason, maybe a visual reason. Let's talk about one "thing" in particular. In God Bless America, towards the end of the song, we point our instruments up high. Really high. To me, it seems higher than the stadium. So our instruments are pointing at the sky. I was thinking about this while we were doing it. Wondering WHY we were doing it. I didn't think it made things louder for the audience... if anything maybe we lose sound out the top of the stadium.

So why do we do this?

Then my tired brain whispered to me, "It's because you're playing for the angels." And tears sprung to my eyes and I got choked up and couldn't play anymore. My brain continued to whisper "The angels are listening to you. They are watching you march on this field. The angels LOVE football. They LOVE the University of Utah!" And the song finished and I turned to an innocent rookie standing by me, and I said "God bless America, Carly.... God.... Bless.... America...."

Luckily my sunglasses were on. If she saw I was about to cry, I may have been arrested for being crazy. Then my brain slapped itself in the face and said "Get a hold of yourself woman! You're crazy!" And I realized I was.

And then we had to go back to page three of pregame.