This past summer, a handful of us were chosen to write Webmoirs...which is just a fancy name for an online Journal. We would turn in an entry just about everyday and people in the YEA! office would post them online. This gave our friends, family, and fans a sort of behind the scenes look at what goes on everyday.
For those of you that were there, I hope this brings back some memories and for those of you who werent, hopefully this will help you imagine what it was like to be a part of the 2003 Cadets...
June 3rd 2003
My name is Paula and this is my second year marching mellophone with the Cadets. I think i'll start off with telling you a little bit about myself. I was born in Florida and still currently live there. I am 18 years old and my birthday is on July 5th. (you are more than welcome to mail me a present...just kidding) Today is June 3rd and we are about 2 and a half weeks into spring training.
This year we have spring training at Camp Pontiac in Copake, NY. We are definetly up in the mountains and IT IS COLD! It never gets this cold in Florida so I'm always bundled up. That's enough about these crazy mountains for now. I am extremely excited about this season for many reasons. We have an amazing administration team, which is key in this activity. They have to be superhuman. Well, enough about them, on to the show! It's incredible, so far we have the intro and opener on the field. Yesterday we started to put Malaguena on the field and we continued to do more of that today. We're almost halfway through it so hopefully we'll be done by the weekend. There are some pretty swift tempos in Fanfare and Allegro (our opener) so it's kind of nice to have Malaguena. The beginning is our "ballad" and then we go into some HOT LATIN. I'll talk more about the show later. I don't want to give too much away in my first webmoir, but I will tell you that this show is extremely physically demanding. The visual staff likes to kick our butts a little more each day. Today's basics block was pretty intense to say the least. We did circle drill continuous. If you are asking yourself "What is circle drill?" I will try to explain it real quick for you. Basically, we all get on this circle that is painted on the field and march around it, inside it, outside it, and do all kinds of foot placements throughout. We went continuous three times...Three times straight through for the first two, and five time through the last time. It was NOT tiring at all- ok just kidding, it was intense. We also put air exercises to it so we were worn out by the end. It really felt good afterwards and we can see the corps is getting better. Basics is all about working the technique and making us stronger. Gotta love it! Well, I have to go take a dotbook test now, so goodnight!
June 5th
The long wait is finally over. I found out tonight that i'll be doing this webmoirs thing for the summer. I'm pumped about it and I know you are too, so lets get this party started. We woke up at 7am today and went to stretch and run...well, the corps went to stretch and run, but myself and 9 other elite members had better things to do. We are the field lining crew and we are amazing. We control rehearsal because without lines, it would be kinda hard to do drill. It's an important job, but we have fun doing it. Reading the label on the paint can is always awesome becaues it says things such as "This paint is illegal in the state of California because it is known to cause birth defects and nervous system damage." ****-****** Paint...simply the best.After we're done lining, we do an intense field liners' stretch and then head to breakfast. We had sectionals first, which was a good thing for me and let me tell you why. I don't know how ready my body would have been to do circle drill at 208bpm at such an early hour.
Dean Westman is finally back. Dean is our Brass caption head and he's been out for a while doing stuff for his band and whatnot. He's missing his daughter's fifth birthday to be here with us...what a trooper. He's a great guy and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us.
We started learning Malaguena a couple days ago. I'm sure I mentioned that in my last entry, but it's late and I'm tired so things may not make sense from here on out. We had hot dogs for lunch today. I'd like to give a shout out to Craig Davis...he marched here last year and loves hot dogs. He would get so excited when we'd have them that it would make me smile, and it still does. Jeez I hope that made sense...I feel like I'm dreaming and trying to write this webmoir...maybe I really am asleep, who knows. Matt is here next to me writing his entry and he fell asleep on it twice. He was close to drooling on it, but I woke him up in time to save it.
So after lunch, we had ensemble where we worked on Malaguena and then Fanfare and Allegro. We're about half done with Malaguena and it is going to be HOT. We're going to be doing a lot of dancing. We just don't know what yet since we haven't learned the choreography. I'm really excited about doing some dancing in there...it's going to be awesome. (POST SEASON NOTE- ok so clearly, the only dancing done in malaguena was by the colorguard(unless you count the fist pump)...i'm not crazy though, they did say that we were going to have choreography in the very beginning...ok i'm done.) I feel as if I am making less and less sense with each new sentence I write. Oh well, I'm trying hard, for you.
After ensemble we had a short(10 minute) break and then did 2 more hours of marching. We didn't play so that gave our chops a break. Jeff had some more new Malaguena drill so we learned that.
Ok, so once marching was done we had a thirty-minute snack break which consisted of pretzels,corndogs, and PB&J. I unfortunately missed out on the corndogs, but I was all about some PB&J and a soft baked pretzel. Mary and I went up to the field a little early and passed out. When I say "passed out" I really just mean "went to sleep." Some pretty ominous clouds started to roll in and a light drizzle started to fall right before we started circle drill. That light drizzle turned into a monsoon so the visual staff made us go to the "Palace." The Palace is a fancy name for an indoor basketball court. We were a little wet to say the leastt, but finished up our last marching block of the day strong. I really feel like we got better today. We didn't let the situation control us and we pushed through. It just feels like we have really been stepping it up over the last couple of days and it's exciting. Welp, i'm gonna get some sleep since it is definetly 2am. By the way, if you are wondering if I enjoy food, I do. Mail time is a happy time. If you decide that you want to send me soemthing, I think that would be ok. I will give you a shout out. Ok I really should sleep, thanks for reading.
June 6th
John Mayer, a can of coke, and a webmoir...is this heaven? It must have been close to 90 degrees today during marching block and I loved it. It's usually cold and/or rainy so this was a nice change. I also darkened up another shade. I love being tan.
We pretty much worked through the opener in the morning block and then went to lunch. Lunch was awesome. Not so much the tuna and fries, but more so because Saturday Night Live was on the TV in the cafeteria. We watched that TV like we were getting paid to do it. I just want to say that I have no idea where our food truck is. It's been gone for at least a week. This is the first time i've gone without eating for seven days. Just kidding...they have food in the cafeteria, but Matt's strawberry milk powder is still on the food truck. Every morning Matt and I have either chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla Nesquik and it makes us happy. Hopefully we'll have strawberry in our hands too because vanilla is starting to get old.
The afternoon and evening blocks went very well. Some of the local residents still honked their horns after we'd finish a re in hopes that we'd stop, but we didn't. They really love us here and i'm sure they wish we would stay all year.
We had donuts for snack. Eating two seemed like a good idea at first, but it really wasn't- especially since I also had a PB&J sandwich. I was in somewhat of a food coma for the first few minutes of ensemble. It's of course not a real coma...it's just when you eat way too much and feel like blahhhhh during rehearsal. I love it.
we chunked through everything we know and did a run-through. We're pretty much to the halfway point show wise. I had a great run-through and played just about every note. That was definetly something I couldn't do last year at this point.
One of my friends sent me a package and I am enjoying it as I write(crunchy cheetos)AAANND it's time for bed. GOOOODNIGHT.
June 7th
It rained today. It also rained, rained, and rained. Continuous rain made for an interesting day. George always talks to us about choosing our attitudes. Basically, every day we have a choice to make-- "It will be a great day!" OR "Today is going to be awful." I usually have no problem being positive even in the worst of situations, but today was pushing it.
We went to sectionals after breakfast. It was a pretty solid rain so we broke into small sections and warmed up in the cabins for about 45 minutes. Derek let us wear sandals and it was awesome. We ended up staying in the cabins a little longer than we were originally going to since the rain was so bad. We eventually went outside and worked some stuff on the field...in the rain. I started to get a little frustrated because the field was starting to get muddy and dangerous. We kept going anyway and everyone made it through alive. It was just a little sketchy to be running around on a bumpy, wet field.
Lunch made me feel better because they made us grilled cheese and tomato soup.(my most favorite lunch ever)The rain kept on falling after lunch so we went to sectionals instead of marching. The mellophones were in cabin 6 as usual (the hornline girls cabin)and went to sleep...for five minutes until Derek got here.(Derek Gipson is our tech) He actaully let us chill out ofr a good 30 minutes. Then some of us left to play in The Flinstones small group. I was in there for about an hour and a half. It was a lot of fun because Vamsi was conducting us. He marched here in 2001 and 2002 and arranged The Flinstones for us. He also arranged The Jetsons.
So around five we went back to the cabin, finished up small sectionals and went to snack. The rain pushed on so we (the brass line) met up inside the cafeteria and had a friendly competition. We split the hornline into five different groups and played through some of the show. I was in group 1...we definetly destroyed the other groups and won hands down.
So once we were done crushing the other mini hornlines ;) we went to the palace for some marching with Marc Sylvester. He is a genius. He tried to get us to march more relaxed. We all felt like we did yoga or something when we were done. I can't wait to try this out on the field tomorrow. And it's about that time again where I am not making any sense in my webmoir so i'm gonna have to end this now before it starts to get really bad! Goodnight!
June 8th
I've never had to do laundry as bad as I do right now. You know it's bad when everyone has to "recycle" their dirty clothes. Every year we have a movie night during spring training. It gives us a chance to wear normal clothes and to get out into the real world for a few hours. Unfortunately, they couldn't work out getting busses for us so we ended up staying here to watch a movie in the "theatre" at camp. I opted to skip the movie (Catch me if you Can). Why you ask? Because it started at 10pm and after a full day's butt kicking, sitting in a movie theatre was at the end of the list of things i'd like to do. I ended up calling my mom and using the computer for a little bit. After that I made my way back to the cabin, took a luke warm shower, and hung out for a bit before going to sleep on my aero bed sleeping bag. It's the best thing that's happened to a sleeping bag because it has a built in air mattress. Anyway, the day was pretty productive. We cleaned some drill up and finally finished Malaguena! 96 pages of drill and we haven't even started Rocky Point Holiday. Watch out now!
PS: We had ice cream for snack and it was amazing. OK, must sleep.
June 9th
T-2 days till laundry. The colorguard goes tomorrow, brass on Wednesday, and percussion on thursday. I think Chris Moss arranged it this way because the guard would cry if they had to wait any longer. I'm sure percussion doesn't care when they go and the brassline is somewhere in the middle.
I had my favorite breakfast today- biscuits and gravy. I love it so much that I had 2 and a half of them AND a bowl of Frosted Flakes. I knew it would be a bad idea, but I did it anyway. I definetly thought I was going to throw up during basics...I didn't though, so i'm happy about that.
We cleaned a lot of drill and things are sounding better on the move(moving while playing). I think we're getting some drill to Rocky Point tomorrow. We did a run thru at the end of the day of everything we know. I thought I was going to pass out at 2 points during the run-thru. It was awesome though because I was playing so loud and so much. I couldn't swallow after Fanfare and Allegro, which was also awesome. We don't even have Rocky Point yet and we're worn out...just wait. The show is a little tiring, but we're getting stronger each day. We have our first show on friday in Allentown for fan appreciation. I can't wait to see how the crown reacts. I have a feeling they're gonna go nuts.Alright, I need to sleep. Goodnight!
June 10th
LAUNDRY! They divided up the brass and the tubas and mellos got to go today...one day earlier than scheduled! It was exciting, well, except for the fact that we had to go AFTER rehearsal. There was a gas station near the Laundromat so naturally we bought some food. Our awesome tech Derek gave me $50 to buy the section ice cream, so each Mello had a pint of Ben and Jerry's to themselves when it was all said and done. I decided on New York Super Fudge Chunk. I love it...I know this is a long shot, but if you have a way to keep it from melting, and want to bring me some after a show, I wouldnt complain. ; )
Clean clothes are awesome. I also had cell phone reception for the first time in 4 weeks last night. I talked to my friend Patrick for a while...until I lost reception and almost talked to Craig, but my phone wasn't cooperating. I just couldn't get a good signal standing in front of the dryer. I had to lean up against it because we had shoes in there and every ten or so seconds they would hit the dryer door and knock it open. So I spent about twenty minutes chillin out on the dryer.
I guess i'll talk a little bit about how the day went. Breakfast was,ehhh. I had rice krispies and OJ. You win some, you lose some. We got a lot done today. I keep saying that everday, but it's true. Finally got some Rocky Point drill. The show is NOT tiring at all. Geez, I'm prolly gonna vomit after our first full run-thru. (POST SEASON NOTE: I didn't throw up once all season)We are getting stronger each day. Some bad news though, Dean Westman(our brass caption head)broke his leg tonight. He fell down a hill after rehearsal. More to come on that tomorrow. Night!
June 11th
More rain please. It rained throught the entire first block of marching, turing the field into a muddy slip and slide. It took the staff a couple of hours, but they finally realized that it was a little unsafe, so we moved to another field. That field wasn't much better, but it did have a hill and a baseball mound-ideal for marching on.
The trumpets and baritones got to do laundry today. I feel bad for the pit since they have to wake up at 6:15AM tomorrow to do theirs. We had sectionals even though half the hornline was at laundry. I had the worst food coma ever...I may have fallen asleep several times.
We got to stand still during sectionals because it was wet and we would have destroyed our ensemble field even more. We also learned four more pages of Rocky Point. I'm going all over that field...the show is hard, but it's getting easier every day. Well, to a point, cause they keep adding on drill each day. There could even be a Garfield G set in there...you'll just have to wait and see.
We had ensemble on the crappy field with a hill and then did a run-thru. The run-thrus are what's getting harder and harder because we almost have the whole show done. After the run-thru, Marc Sylvester had a talk with us because we were rehearsing poorly and it was embarrassing him. We kinda changed up our rehearsal technique so I guess it's just taking some time to get used to.
Spring training is almost over-2 more days and we're out of here. Friday is "fan appreciation day" Saturday is Gettysburg...it's gonna be "special." Gettysburg is usually our first show in uniform but this year we are doing the fan appreciation in allentown. I am sure they are both going to be awesome. Time for sleep, goodnight.
June 12th
It has ended. We're finally done with spring training. I was starting to go crazy this last week- definetly ready to leave Copake, NY and their 10ft. tall mosquitoes. It wouldn't have been fun if it didn't rain today, so weather control made sure it did. It was tolerable until ensemble.It started off as a nice drizzle, progressed to a moderate amount and then it was full out pouring. I was prepared for the rain in my white t-shirt and shako. We wore them to ensemble to get used to seeing everyone look virtually the same. Shakos make great rain hats-or not. The field wasnt great to begin with, but the rain turned it into a muddy crocodile mile slip 'n slidefor day 2 in a row. I thought they'd stop us from doing it, buuuuuuut they didn't.I'm glad we did it because it was definetly needed. It was freezing and it kicked my butt, but I had a great run-thru. There was a point where I was like "This is amazing." I felf this amazing vibe because everyone gave it their all despite the situation; it pushed me so much more. I almost cried at the end;it was a really emotional run. Now I have to pack up all my junk and find a way to sleep at a reasonable hour. Well, sleep didn't happen until 3AM. So mission failed on that one.I'm actually writing this the day after(13th). In fact, i've been doing that a lot lately so sorry for making you think I was really writing these while falling asleep. I mean I did that with some of them, but not the last few. Alright, i'm not making sense again and this time it is at night and I REALLY am tired so I must go. George told us we got a lot better today, which was awesome. We're definetly not there yet, but at least he's acknowledging improvement.
June 13th
Good morning Cadets, it is 6am. You have 2 hours to have all your stuff under the bus and your cabins cleaned.GO. I did all that and then decorated the bus seat. Somehow the bus smelled nasty about 3 minutes after we got on it; I can't wait to smell it in 2 months.I'm sure I won't be able to tell since I'm used to it already. The bus ride was about 4 hours long so I slept even more. It was awesome. We drove to Allentown for a "fan appreciation" show. Got there and ate; they had pizza for us. I enjoy pizza. (Papa John's and Dominos are my favorites). They made us chicken salad as well, but it didn't make us sick. Poor regiment kids, that must have been awful. I have some friends up there and they didn't enjoy eating tainted chicken salad. Anyway, we had a little time to rehearse in the stadium. It was astro-turf, but it had the rubber pieces under it so it felt like I was marching on kitty litter. Oh fun. It started to rain OF COURSE. Yay! Rain, yeah, love it. So we did a run-thru and had a very short amount of time to get ready. I didn't eat dinner(unless you count pizzeria pretzel combos). Me, Mary, and Laura got our hur did. (Hur=hair). George decided for us that we were going to wear Shakos and white t-shirts for the performance because it "looked like rain." Welp, warm up time. We started to make our way down to the warm-up area where it proceeded to:
A.) Rain
B.) Become beautiful and sunny out
C.) Rain
D.) Rain
E.) A,C, and D
If you picked Letter E, congratulations.RAIN!!WHUUUUA!WHY!? We got soaked. We kinda just stood there for about 5 minutes to wait for it to stop. (under a tree...how safe!) It did not stop so we walked back to the buses, waited for a bit and warmed up on our own. Some of us played warm-ups from our old book...we miss them...a lot. At this point I didn't think the show was going to happen, but the rain stopped and we warmed up as a full hornline. So wet, so cold. We played through some YEA! tunes at a soft volum, which was embarrassing because anyone watching warm-up probably thought we were trying to play loud but couldn't. That was an anit-hype, but it's all good. We walked to the gate and sang Holy Name. I'm in the star spangled banner group which is a small group of hornline members who play the SSB before the show. We did that and then the whole corps took the field. It was exciting, but it could have been more exciting if we weren't in wet clothes and shakos. I had a good show and over all it went pretty well. Afterwards, we had about 2 hours to do whatever we wanted so Matt and I went to Yocco's for hotdogs. They were really good. After that we went tothe gas station where I bought a new webmoir notebook and some Ben & Jerry's (Half-baked). It was some much needed "real world" time. Bus ride to Gettysburg, peace!
June 14th
Gettysburg,PA-first show of hte year baby. We got into the dorms at Gettysburg College around 2am(an hour earlier than expected). The bus ride over there was AWFUL because I couldn't stop coughing; it was the worst ever. Today I ran with the corps for the first time. Thought I was going to throw up...it was awesome. Somehow my group ended up taking the long way, oh well.It made me miss field lining, but if I don't start running,I'll die once we put the whole show on the field. We rehearsed on a battlefield-nice. I don't think that grass has been cut since the battle of Gettysburg cause it was THICK. Temperature=scalding. It was a really short block: 2 hours of marching, lunch, sectionals, and ensemble.
Ready for stress? 45 minutes to eat, shower, polish my dinkles and horn, and to get into uniform. Well, I skipped out on dinner and made it on time. I had pizzeria pretzel combos yet again so I wouldn't pass out during the show. We wore the new uniforms for the first time tonight. They are alright; I mean it's just hard to get used to the change. They fit really weird though because they zip up in the back instead of buttoning in the front.(And the buttons look like mentos)The jacket rides up and somehow the zipper gets caught on my hair even though It's completely up in my shako.Weird.What else? Oh yeah, we have gauntlet type things that hold in ALL of our heat so it's like putting us on the grill or something. I could talk about the uniform forever but i'll wrap it up. I think i'll be alright with them if we're allowed to tuck everything into the cummerbund. The buckles have been replaced with mirrors! AHHHHH! Ok, this venting session has come to a close. We're still the Cadets no matter what we wear; the uniform doesn't make us who we are, we do. (although i'm still hoping that George realizes that the old uniforms are better and we send the new ones back)
So let's talk about the field at the show site. It was heinous. As our block marched onto the field, I was like wow, this grass is gonna tear me up. There are worse things I could have been thinking but not while in uniform. We don't say or think about anything close to a profanity in uniform. It's just disrespectful. If you have to ask yourself if you can say something, then you just shouldn't say it. Anyway, back to the show. So there's all this thick grass throughout the field, there are chunks missing leaving dirt patches and holes (death pits). Not your ideal situation, but we did it anyway, I mean there's really no way out of a show. I thought it went pretty badly. The field was kicking us royally so naturally you'd think we'd have a bad show. Apparently we were a lot better than the night before, which was hard to believe, but I guess it must be true if the staff, volunteers, and alumni all said so. When you don't have a good show personally, you usually feel like the whole corps did bad, so that was the case for me tonight. After the show, Debbie's mom brought all the girls in the hornline(there are 17 of us) pizza. It's pretty sad that Debbie had to go home after that. This was her fourth year in the corps and she messed up her foot real bad. I think the grand total was a broken toe, torn ligaments and a severe sprain. Hey Debbie, if you're reading this and I messed up your diagnosis, i'm sorry. But basically, it's really weird not having her around and we all miss her a lot. She might come back in two weeks or so when she's recovered; I hope she does! After that we cleared out of the dorms and drove back to the worst place on earth-Camp pontiac. There are few things that I dislike more than that place. I've been writing this entry over the past 2 days or so. It's the 16th right now and i'm on a bus to somewhere in PA. I'm goin to bed, goodnight!
PS:Matt fell asleep while writing his webmoir again. I woke him up 3 times, but he eventually gave in and went to sleep. I did not and for that, I am a champion.
PPS:Lou fell asleep on John Molloy and he has his arm around him.(John does) It's hillarious and we have pictures. Goodnight.
June 20th
Today was our first "real" show of the season. We got into Sevierville, Tennessee around 4:30am and went straight out to the field to rehearse...just kidding, we had about 2 and a half hours of floor time.(sleep in the gym)It was a pretty short day compared to what we've been doing(full rehearsal days) so it was nice. I was super excited since it was a "game day" (we call show days "game days"). The whole corps was ready to finally get out there and show everyone what we've been working on for so long. Rehearsal went really well; we were all pumped about our first show and it was obvious that we were ready to perform the crap out of it. The field in Sevierville is special; it's more like a hill. The visual staff told us about it to sort of prepare us. I really knew since we did this show last year; I remembered it as being ridiculously hard to march on that field. It wasn't that bad this year, so I must have been really awful last year! ;)
The show went pretty much as well as it could have at this point in the season and George seemed alright with it. It's hard to make him happy when it comes to this stuff, but we did score 1 point or so higher than his prediction(we scored a 74.3).It was great to perform again; the crowd definetly reacted to the show(especially malaguena). At this point, we only had Rocky Point for two days, so I think it's pretty amazing that we performed and didn't die. We started to run out of gas during the end which has been and will continue to be an issue for a while. The staff is making sure to work our endurance so everyone joins the "end of the show club." Alan's dad brought us krispy kreme donuts at dinner and they were great. He also sent me my first webmoir fan mail.Thank you Mr. Horne, you are awesome...as for the rest of you, ha just kidding. Thanks for reading, i'm gonna get some sleep.
June 22nd
Ok, I can't do this anymore...I have to tell you the truth. This entry really talks about the 16th-22nd. I've been so tired lately and it's hard to write on the bus, especially when everyone is asleep. Poor excuses, I know, but I will try and make it up to you. Let's see if I can catch you up on the last week. So much has happened since the Boston parades. I don't think my butt has ever been kicked as hard as it was these last few days. We got 27 pages(I think) of drill to Rocky Point and we were back at lovely Camp Pontiac to learn them. AHHH! Ok, so we actually learned all that drill and put it to music in one day...pretty amazing.As a goodbye present, the camp made sure that the showers were arctic. Ok, great, we were really leaving Copake, NY this time. I don't dislike many things, but this place is definetly one of them. The next day we went to Pennsylvania and had our first Music is Cool clinic. They are special. It's not my most favorite thing to do, but knowing that us being there makes at least one kid's day makes it all worth it. It kind of a downer cause most of the kids at all of the schools so far didn't really know who we were or anything about drum corps. A positive out of that is that they hopefully learned something that they could take with them. If the Cadets came to my high school, i'd be flipping out so it's just weird to see kids walking around like cattle, totally clueless. We had clinics on the 17th, 18th, and 19th. We also started to run six laps in the morning instead of four. I have a feeling it's going to end up being 10 laps soon.(POST SEASON NOTE- False alarm, we never did more than six laps) Oh well, I need to run anyway cause i'm not that good at it. Anyway, we also did two full show run-throughs at each clinic, which totally cashed us(cashed=finished, destroyed, worn out)Wow, we just went throught four days in two notebook pages...I feel like i'm cheating. I sort of am I guess, but in a way I'm not because the clinic days are pretty much all the same. If anything, I saved you from reading the same thing three times; yeah, that's what I did...this worked out great. Actually, I forgot to mention a couple things from thursday so here it goes. My uniform is huge on me. Men's size 40 pants and a giant jacket. The uni people from Fred J. Miller showed up and along with April Gilligan and Marc Sylvester, tried to figure out why our uniforms looked awful by the time we would come off the field. Well, they came to the conclusion that mine was huge and that they couldn't do anything about it. So i'm waiting on some new pants. I did get another Jacket the other day though. It's actually a little small,but it looks good though...a little hard to breathe in but that's not important now is it?! Anyway, we did an entire ensemble block including a run-thru in FULL uniform to help us get used to how everything felt and looked when we all wore the same thing. A little weird going from the usual which is rehearsing in next to nothing, to a shako, jacket, and pants etc.It got the job done though. I'd like to say thank you to the Olentangy High School band parents because they made us an AMAZING dinner!! It was just about gone by the time I got there, but I heard it was great. Thursday was also the day that I was pretty sure I lost my wallet.I searched everywhere(apparently not everywhere since I later found it in my suitcase along with my cell phone charger). It wasn't anywhere in my bus seat which made me pretty sure that it was gone but I have it now and i'm very happy. I never told my mom but i'm sure she will find out when she reads this...awesome. Hi mom. Goodnight.
July 4th (June 21st-July 4th)
Ok, here's the deal. The past two weeks have been really intense. We've been waking up at 4am just about every morning, running 6 miles a day and only getting PB&J at meals. It's been rough, so you could imagine how much harder writing webmoirs would make things. I would try to write them on the bus, but i'd keep falling asleep. The kept adding up and I just got farther and farther behind. None of that is true about them not feeding us and stuff, but I do apologize for slacking off and not managing my time well enought to write an entry every night. All that is going to change. You guys are faithful readers and some of you probably check every day to see how my summer is going. I'm sorry for letting you down. No more of this-lets start over. My name is Paula and i'm going to do the best I can to give you a great entry every day for the rest of the summer, but as for now, I have to sum up these past two weeks for ya.
June 21st
We only had an hour and a half marching block in the morning because we had to go to Cardinal Stadium for a DCI/BOA clinic. It's awesome because they give us free T-shirts; this year they were pink and white and all the boys loved them. Every year they make about 10 mediums and then all the rest are XXXXXL or bigger. I of course got a huge one, but it's ok cause I just laughed about it and went on with my life. The stadium was beautiful and the kids seemed like they had a great time. Even Michael Cesario was there-what a party! Anyway, we did the show and it went well.
We stayed at a housing site in some random part of Wisconsin(Beloit). We had about 2 and a half hours of floor time but matt, mary Jess Christen and I went to a gas station and bought food that we really didn't need. For example, Matt and I ate chipwiches for breakfast.(incase you don't know, a chipwich is an ice cream sandwich type deal. It has vanilla ice cream and it's sandwiched in between two chocolate chip cookies...now that we've got that squared away)Ok so ice cream for breakfast-it was good stuff. It was a typical rehearsal day. We went through circle drill about 10 times continuous I think. It was pretty intense. We had stadium lights so we rehearsed kind of late. Afterwards Laura, Jarred, and I went to Burger King. Rehearsal was a little tough at times since you could clearly see the Burger King sign from the field. We walked in there with all of our rehearsal stuff and instruments. Some random guy was like "Heyyyy what is that?" (pointing to Jarreds trumpet) I say "it's a trumpet" and he goes " I KNOW WHAT IT IS, BUT WHAT KIND?" "it's a Yamaha"...then he proceeded to grab it out of my hands and play a note, hands it back and says " Yeah, I still got it" umm yeah you still got it alright. Jarred washed his mouthpiece in the hot water for coffee. Dean also came back today and he had plenty of hospital jokes, especially about him peeing with a catheter in him. He's a great guy. Ok, on to the next day. These so called "short summaries" are getting out of control so im gonna have to shorten them even more.
June 23rd
Today we were in Rockford,Illinois for the "show of shows" show.Hah, anyway,we sang Holy Name near these big pillars that looked like something out of ancient Greece(sort of) so that was cool.The grass was kind of thick but the show went well. It was the Show of Shows, so it had to be awesome. Afterwards, we had a "Cavie Cadet Phantom" party. All of our food trucks were near eachother and we shared food and mingled---well the Cavies and us mingled, but the Regiment kept their disance. One of the volunteers even yelled at us for taking food from their table(even though that's what we were supposed to do!) That guy flipped out on us..we thought he was joking at first, but he obviously wasn't. Its ok, the Cavies were fun to hang out with and they had really good nachos on their truck so we liked them even more.
Today was another Music is Cool clinic-enough said. Music is losing its cool, but laundry is not. We finally had a laundry day, or night should I say. The rookies have to clean the bus on laundry day, which is awesome because that means that I don't. So the vets got off at the first laundromat. It was amazing. There were 270 fast food restaurants and a CVS Pharmacy-is this heaven? I also did George Hopkins' laundry and he paid me $29 dollars...I think I ended up spending most of it on junk that night anyway =) I felt a little bad for the rookies since they got dropped off at a less than stellar laundromat, but they did a great job cleaning the bus and we love them.
June 25th
Today we rehearsed at the University of Illinois and it was hot out. We ran inside the stadium Indian sprint style. That means we get into groups of 10 and get in lines. We would run and the back person would have to sprint to the front and so on and so forth. A little tiring, but good for us. We did the show and then drove a whopping 185 miles to Wheeling, West Virginia, the worst place ever.
June 26th
The school in WV was under construction, so it took them a while to get our food and equiptment trucks up there so we got to chill out in the gym for a little while. It was a rehearsal day, but it wasn't too long and there was no ensemble. We got on the bus and made our way to Giants stadium.
June 27th
We drove 412 miles to get to Giants Stadium. I've been getting the floor every night so I don't have a problem with long bus rides. It took us forever to get into the stadium since security checked EVERY bag we had(even water coolers!). IT WAS AWESOME. There was another Music is cool clinic today- enough said. It was our home show so the energy was great. We were supposed to go to a carnival after the show, but the admin staff dissapointed us yet again and we were denied. I'm used to it so it didn't even matter. The locker rooms were great, which made it all worth it.
June 28th
Music is really starting to lose it's cool. More clinics-please. It was a good 15 minute walk from our housing site to the stadium-yay. It was fine in the morning, but at the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to do was to carry everything I owned uphill for 15 minutes. The show went pretty well and we had a meeting with George aferwards.
Beverly Massachussets
Ok, this was just weird. We were at a housing site with the Cavaliers and we didn't have our food truck so we had to eat off of theirs. I felt like I was at a food bank, but oh well. It was very nice of them to feed us and we'd do the same for them. I still think our bisucuits and gravy are better though. ;) We rehearsed on adjacent fields and there was a carnival going on in the background...it was hilarious. During Lunch Christen mentioned to me that she remembered there being a Dairy Queen near the school...I took her word for it and right after rehearsal her, me and Mary ran to find it. We found it alright, but the Crossmen found it first. There was no way we were gonna wait on that line since we had to get ready for the show. We settled for nesquik from a local gas station and grabbed some dinner off the Cavies truck. It was really good chicken stuff, I enjoyed it. Ahh the beanpot invitational. I had a great show and I got to see some of my Boston Crusader friends from back home. I also saw Matt sieloff who marched baritone in 2002, I missed him a lot so it was great to see him. We still didn't have our food truck but the crossmen had AMAZING lasagna, cheesebread, and chocolate chip cookies for us. I smuggled some cookies for my Boston friends. It was a great dinner.
June 30th-July2nd
Fort Edward, NY. 8 minute mile days,AHHH these three days were the most cashing yet I think. Three in a row, bang, bang, bang. We put in all but one of the major changes in the show and they worked our buts off. It was really hard, i'm not gonna lie but we needed it. The show is, of course still dirty, but the new changes help out a lot. Things just make more sense now both visually and musically. We had a movie night on July 1st and let me tell you, it was much needed.(POST SEASON NOTE-FREE DAAAAY!)About 12 of us chose to go to olive garden instead and we definetly made the right choice.Unlimited soup,salad, and breadsticks, chicken alfredo, and a coke OR the movie "Finding Nemo"...I made the right choice. I would have just fallen asleep in the movie anyway. Matt's sandal broke on the way to olive garden so we had to take it a little slow so he could keep up. I tried giving him a piggy back ride but that only worked for a few feet. I felt like a normal person for a few hours and then it was back on the bus.
July 3rd
Bristol,RI. We Shared this housing site with the Crossmen. I remembered from last year that there was a Dunkin Donuts across the street. It was still there and I ate there twice. Vanilla Bean Coolattas are exquisite. We had a short rehearsal since it started pouring during and after lunch. We stayed inside and played in small sectionals.(POST SEASON NOTE-I BELIEVE TODAY WAS THE DAY OF THE MELLOPHONE DRESS UP SECTIONAL...we had sectionals in a sewing classroom so there were tie-dyed t-shirts, mexican hats, and a plethera of extra materials. Our tech Derek had to leave the room for a minute so we quickly dressed up in all these crazy things. It was awesome. He came back and just looked at us like "oh jeez, these crazy kids." So we told him that he had to dress up as well...he did and it was hillarious.Possibly the best small sectional yet, and we've had some good ones. We actually got stuff done believe it or not. There are pictures and hopefully they will be up on the site really soon!)No ensemble today-it was nice to be able to relax after the three days in Ft. Edward. There were rumors that the show would be cancelled, but it wasn't. We had a pretty darn good show, especially for not having ensemble. It must have been April Gilligan's motivational pre-show speech. We did a victory concert and they loved us. There were fire works but we're not allowed to look at them. ;) Lots of free hot dogs and fries afterwards, it was great.
July 4th
Non-stop parades all day long...or maybe just two, but they were long. It's fun listening to the people along the parade route. "PLAAAAAY SOMETHIIIIIIIIIIING" like I have control over whether or not the entire corps is going to play...right. Most of them have had one too many drinks anyway so you can't really blame them for not knowing what's going on. Mrs. Perry made us barbeque pork chops, hot dogs, and salad for dinner. It was great, thanks Mrs. Perry! Matt and I got milkshakes from a crowded McDonalds and called it a night. Whahaha i'm caught up!This feels great. Good thing it's 1am and we're getting up in 5 and a half hours. The gym is also full of Crossmen and has no air conditioning but its better than out here, where the man eating mosquitos and random bugs are. It's now the 5th so that means that it's my birthday so that's awesome. Goodnight.
July 5th
Go shorty, it's ya birfday-yeah that's right, today I turned the big 1-9. I couldn't think of a better group of people to celebrate it with.(I of course miss my family, but these guys made it great)We had a parade in the morning(6:30am wake up) in Nashua, NH. Now if you're in the brassline and it's your birthday,you get to step out of the arc and listen to something. I was pretty lucky since I got to hear two chord progressions AND Cadillac of the skies. I started tearing up during Cadillac because I could feel that everyone was playing it for me; it was a great feeling to know that and it sounded amazing. It was pretty hot out during this parade but it was fun stuff. The parade took a little longer than expected so the little bit of rehearsal we had was pushed back some. Chris Moss gave us 45 minutes to hang out before we went back to the school so a few of us went to a supermarket. I got a giant bottle of red powerade(my favorite) some Ben and Jerry's, chips, and icy-hot patches. I want to have another Wal-mart run, but who knows when that will be if it even happens at all. We got back to the school and had about 1 1/2 hours to "get ready to rehearse" so naturally I went to sleep for a while...got my stuff ready and went to brass sectionals. We only had an hour in sectionals so we warmed up, did some trcking and headed to the field for ensemble. The Crossmen got the good field so we were thrown on a dusty sand pit with patches of weeds. It was like we were at the beach or something. Rehearsal was pretty good-we basically just chunked through the show and did a run-through.The sand-dirt was flying everywhere; I think it all went into my eyes and once it mixed with sweat it felt really great. I should bottle that stuff. Covered in dirt, I walked to the food truck expecting hot dogs but instead, I was suprised with taco salad (the best thing about marching Cadets). George wasn't at the show, but he had a message for us: Score an 83 and he'll buy each of us a candy bar. We were up for the challenge and shattered his number with an 83.2. We didn't feel like it was our greatest performance but the judges had a lot of positive comments wihch was good. I got to see Matt sieloff again (2002 Baritone) so I was happy about that. He brought me presents for my birthday.(a yo-yo,slide whistle, and rebound ball).The back of the bus enjoys the slide whistle very much.Thank you to Craig Davis, I think he told Matt to get me the yo-yo. We had a ten or so hour bus ride to Hershey, PA. I pretty much slept through the whole thing, which was great. Got out at a rest stop and had chocolate milk on the curb with adrian and Laura...Scott one of our baritone techs walked by (he had been off tour for a couple weeks) and Adrian yelled "STEEEEEEEEEVE!" clearly his name was scott and Adrian felt like a moron. We made it to Hershey and nothing fell out of the overhead compartment and onto my head so I was happy about that.
July 6th
FREE DAY! We drove all night and got into Hershey around 8:30am, two hours earlier than expected I think. Now I don't hate rollercoasters bus I don't really like them either. I guess it depends on what kind it is. I started off the Hershey Park adventure with Lou,Matt,Jarred,Adrian,and Drew. Before we even got into the park, Matt had to stop for vanilla fudge. We hit the merry-go-round first. So many pictures...i'm sure the normal people on the ride hated us by the end. Lou got a gimp horse that wouldn't go up and down but I still think he had fun. After an intense bumper car brawl, we went searching for milkshakes.(as you can see, Matt and I do this at every chance we get)Vanilla was by far the best flavor there...I had gotten chocolate, Matt got vanilla, and Lou got strawberry so we all shared. It wasn't a contest but I think vanilla won. We went on the log flume next. Matt and I were a little skeptical at first but we enjoyed ourselves. It was a fun time. We had a little lunch at the barbeque and after that it was time to see the dolphin show with special guests Eb and Duke, the sea lions. Eb was the laziest sea lion ever. He didn't do anything and still got fed fish while Duke did all the work. Good life lesson I guess. Eb was quite a dissapointment but we didn't let that ruin our day. I found Mary, Christen, Brian, and Laura and walked around with them for the rest of my day. I left my camera and wallet w/matt accidentally so there no more pictures to be taken. They did some music video Karaoke and then we went to the water park.We played in the water like 5 year olds and it was fun. It was pretty hot out but of course the sun went away when we wanted to lay out and dry off...figures. Me, Laura, Mary, Christen, and Jess got some matching ankle bracelets and called it a half-day. Time to get ready for the show. We did the usual visual warm up and then warmed up in horn arc. The show was much better than the night before and pretty much everyone felt great about it which was the best part. George said that Malaguena and Rocky Point were the best he's heard them so they must have been pretty decent for him to say that. Drew's dad marched Garfield and was the soprano soloist in '83. He and his wife were at the show tonight. Mr. Wilke brought a bunch of memorabilia to the show site including his Garfield Cadets jacket, dotbook from 1983, championship rings from '83 and '84, and the actual soprano he used in 1983. I even got to play his two valve...it was great! Lots of pictures were taken. They also brought watermelon, sandwiches, and gatorade. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie!
July 7th
Early wake up today(6am) but it was for laundry so it was worth it. It seemed like we just did it, but some how everything smelled awful, so I was very happy to have clean clothes. The vets were nice today...we let the rookies off at the first stop(which had a Hardees and McDonalds) and we got off in the middle of nowhere by some train tracks and cleaned the bus. Actually, there were some rookies with us so they cleaned it. Luckily there was a 7-11 right around the corner. I did buy way too much though: a Pizza lunchable,chocolate milk, and 2 chimigangas.(those are AWESOME)When we got back from laundry, we had a 25 minute "snack-unch" did stretch and run, and started learning 28 pages of new drill. The warm-up drill stayed the same, but we all had to switch numbers and learn a new spot(except Greg...lucky guy) and then learn a few pages of revised drill. The drill is gonna look better than the old stuff...It will make more sense and create GE-something that the old stuff was supposed to do but didn't really.
It was a pretty short rehearsal block;we learned all the stuff, played for about 20 minutes and called it a day. Time for a 10+ hour bus ride to Ohio. I am totally on schedule with these webmoirs;I own them...BAM! Time for more dotbooking.Oh good, the bus TV got fixed and "Catch me if you Can" is on. Cya.
July 8th
Today seemed like it would be a typical day. We ran in little groups for 12 minutes in rural Kentucky. My group consisted of myself,Christen,Brian, and Ollie. We are champions. Ollie led us down a sketchy looking path, but we turned around cause we were afraid of getting lost. He then turned down another street and we followed and then ran for our lives cause a huge dog was on the loose and barking at us like we tried to eat out of his food dish or something. Was he chasing us? None of us really know for sure but we think so...lucky for us he stopped once we ran away but all and all that was a close one. Rehearsal was going great until the storm of the century hit. The sky was unbelievable; i've never seen clouds like that. George had us run a chunk of the show and then the rain came.It started off light and then bam-terrential downpour I. The wind was blowing the rain so hard that I thought it was hailing. We waited about 30 minutes and went back out there. Nice lightening.We had to cut rehearsal short again and make a run for it in white T-shirts and shakos. It was an hour drive to the show so we figured we'd be out of the rain and we were. I personally had a really good show, but George didn't think we did so hot as a corps. We scored an 84.0 and were about to do a victory concert when all of a sudden, we were told to leave because a huge storm was on the way. It was huge alright; twice as bad as the one earlier in the day. We got soaked walking back to the busses in twos, this rain was just ridiculous, but we remained calm and still acted like the Cadets. Everything I had on was drenched and George had given us the "you guys are NOT good" speech before the walk back. Awesome way to end the day. On to a very wet bus to Murray,Kentucky-yay!
July 9th
We got into Murray State University around 6am and "slept in"(8am wake up). We got to rehearse at the show site in the stadium and it was great. Astroturf is great. After a pep talk from George, we set up lines of 10 in the endzone for basics.(POST SEASON NOTE-That little "pep talk" from George ended up being the turning point for us this summer...that was really the day that we as a corps decided that we were going to do nothing but work our butts off like maniacs and be the most amazing thing anyone has ever seen...we did it.) Twenty minutes of backwards marching:16 to 5, 8 to 5, 6 to 5 the length of the field. Hey calf muscles, what's up? It felt wonderful, like a volcano in my legs. It really did feel good after we were done though. Rehearsal went great. We got a lot of stuff done and cleaned a bunch of the show. I thought that we were finally going to have a normal day of rehearsal but I was wrong. We were about to do a quick clinic for some band kids when some ominous looking clouds rolled in and unleased on us. We ran from the parking lot to the inside of the stadium. It was just far enough for us to get a little wet. Naturally it threw rehearsal off track some, but we got right back in it being the troopers that we are. There were puddles on the filed and it's not too pretty when that particular type of astroturf is wet because it becomes really sticky. The turf monkeys were just waiting to take someone down, but we escaped because I don't think anyone fell. We did a little dog and pony show for the kids, rehearsed some and then ran Malaguena for them.In the intrest of time, George didn't make us do a full run-through. Thank you George. We had a pretty darn good show too. Hoppy(George)finally felt like we were The Cadets tonight. It was nice to see him happy. We just need to keep building up from that show. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe things are starting to click.To be continued...
July 10th
Another long drive which means two hours of floor time. I didn't even inflate my aerobed, no point; plus it's annoying when someone turns on a pump at 6am...I wasn't about to be "that guy." Today's rehearsal was brought to you by thick grass. So lushious, it was painful. It makes us stronger though and once we get on turf again(Dekalb,IL) we'll be smokin'. There were a few clouds looming in the distance but they knew to stay away. FINALLY a full day of rehearsal without rain. We got so much done. George was at most of rehearsal and he ran ensemble and just had a great time. He said we're tons better than last night because we actually have had a little rehearsal time. No more parades or free days to hold us back anymore. We have a new confidence at shows(a 2 day old one) and it's a good feeling to have. I think as a whole we have finally realized that we ARE The Cadets. No matter what the circumstances we have to get better everyday and throw down every night. Tonight's show was better than the night before. The things we worked on during the day showed up and even though we dropped about a point, who cares?! The main thing is that we have been consistently better for two days in a row. The encore was fun; we got all in their faces since the stands met the track. Malaguena gives me flash backs of boogie woogie encores. Long ride tonight. Ok, time for a quick shout out to Laura's friend Lenny. HEY LENNY! He said he's going to bring Capri suns for the back of the bus and a huge bottle of red powerade for me. Well, I threw in that part about the powerade but if you're reading this Lenny, that would make me happy.Alright, I better get in the aisle before I lose my spot, Lenny is the man! Goodnight.(POST SEASON NOTE- Lenny did bring me the powerade...he IS the man)
July 23rd
Please forgive me for my handwriting, i'm on the bus and Darryl(our driver) is all over the place. Actually, he does a great job and is much better than last year's driver(we called him milk chug and he hit the rumble strip WAY too much)Anyway, today we were in Zachary, Louisiana. There was no show, just a rehearsal. I never really liked this state as it is,but this particular school smelled "awesome."(If by awesome I mean heinous). I can't really describe the smell, but I can tell you that whatever it was,it was mixed with the strong scent of gasoline. The field was covered in red and hills, so Chris Moss decided to drown them out with gasoline in the AM. It worked and they died, but gasoline isn't the best thing to be breathing in all day, especially while running around.So as I sit here, I realize that it doesn't matter how my handwriting is because the only person that sees it is Natalie.(she is the assistant tour director and she collects webmoirs, types them up, and emails them to the YEA! office to be added to the site...she makes it happen)Wahaha! anyway, my friends Craig and Ruth came to rehearsal. It was great to see them. Rehearsal went great. We got a lot done in both sectionals and marching, setting us up for a great ensemble. The dark clouds in the distance made their way to the field and peed on us. This was quite possibly the hardest rain of the summer and there have been 39 days of rain before today. Most would make up excuses and end rehearsal early but we kept going. It turned out to be an amazing ensemble. We rehearsed wonderfully and it was a great feeling to know that nothing could stop us from getting better. The aftermath-everything I owned was went. That pretty much goes for everyone.Note to self:Light yellow sports bras aren't the best when it rains.=) Not too many people showered; some actually used the hoses outside of the food truck which is pretty cool...i'll do it sometime before I age out.The rest of us were happy with the shower we got during ensemble. We at dinner by the busses with Craig and Ruth. The MG crew was reunited...if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it =). They brought me my favorite things from wendy's- a mandarin chicken salad and chicken nuggets, thanks guys! We said goodbye and got on a very wet bus for a nice ride.
SEASON WRAP-UP WEBMOIR
Wow. This was the most amazing 3 months of my life and it's hard to believe that it's over. I showed up May 16th pale and out of shape and left August 10th black(no, just really tan)and in the best shape of my life. The 2003 Cadets is the most amazing group of people I've ever been around. It rained for 50 days of our summer and instead of letting it affect us and giving up, we pushed through and got better. In Zachary, Louisiana it began to pour during ensemble. It was one of the hardest rains of the summer but we were losing light and had to get done with what we were working on. We finished running some chunks and set up for a run-through. You could hear some people complaining about the fact that we had to do one. I think there was one light pole working and it came from an adjacent baseball field. Sully(Marc Sylvester) yelled at us to just use what we know..."Ya don't need linessss! Use ya eyes and do what ya know how to do!!!!" So we set it up in the block and I looked around at all my friends...we are cold and wet and just busted our butts in the pouring rain together and I thought to myself "Any one of us here would do anything for each other, no questions asked..." Not very many people will ever be a part of something like that. We stepped off for the run and I was so proud to be a part of this...I knew everyone felt the same way. We all gave eachother words of encouragement during our scatter set to kind of pump things up.(The staff eventually did stop us *I think at the start of the opener* because we really couldn't see lines or anything, but it was a great feeling regardless.)
Don't get me wrong, there were some tough times too. For example, almost every time we were supposed to have a movie night or some other form of free time it was taken away and usually replaced with more rehearsal time. Most of us quickly realized that it was going to be like that all summer so we just turned it into a big joke. Since we never had one full free day all summer, we would yell"It's a freeeeeee daaaaaaaaayyy!!!" at the end of rehearsal or for any little break that we'd have during the day. Another example is when we'd only have lets say 35 minutes for lunch when normally we'd have 45min to an hour(hour lunches stopped happening in the middle of the season)...a 35 minute lunch was definetly a free day. I'm sure living on a bus doens't sound too appealing, but it was so much fun. Since we were constantly moving around, the bus was kind of like our home. We had some goooood times on 831.
The friends i've made at Cadets over the past 2 years are incredible people. We talk just about every day during the off-season and even go on trips to visit each other.I remember when I was in 9th grade I saw some girl on a DCI video say "you'll make friends for a lifetime." I laughed when I saw it back then, but it is true....I know that I did. I want to say thank you to all my friends at Cadets for making this summer as special as it was.
Can't forget the staff...they were the best. Visual, brass, guard, and percussion...they are all great teachers and cared so much about us. The administration staff and volunteers were so wonderful. They got us down the road safely, did all the behind the scenes work, cooked and cleaned for hours on end, and helped make the summer as smooth as possible. Also a special thanks to Joan and Noel...they've been with us forever. Any little thing that was wrong with someone, Joan would fix it and be so sweet about it. Best nurse ever!
Lastly, to the fans because you guys really made this summer special.Thanks! Ok, lets try and wrap this up---we were pretty awful in the beginning and we made a choice to do nothing but work our butts off...George told us that we would be great at the end of this if we just worked like maniacs. I didn't believe it was possible at first and I know a lot of others felt the same way but we listened to him anyway and rehearsed like insane people. We had a goal in mind...a goal to be the greatest thing anyone has ever seen.We kept working and got better and better...our goal was clearly attainable. It got to the point where we were consistanly great. Finals day we warmed up in an auditorium because there was a storm outside. (Rain?! Naaaww, no way!)Dean let us play the last hit of malaguena to the end and it was awesome because we are insanely loud inside and it was a fun thing to play. Next we played Cadillac of the skies one last time and it was the most indescribable, incredible feeling i've ever experienced. You can only understand if you were there in that room. We sounded amazing and could feel eachothers emotions...no one said a word but we were speaking through our horns. As I was playing I looked at Dean our caption head...he had lost it and was in tears...after the big hit I couldn't hold it in anymore. I had to stop playing for a second because I had lost it as well.At the end we rippled our horns down and everyone just stopped...all you could hear was the sound of people crying. It was a culmination of everything that happened all summer packed into one song...all the hardwork and dedication was let out. Everyone gave all that they had and it was the most beautiful thing i've ever played or experienced in my life. Dean gave us a couple minutes to regain our composure. A lot of smiles and hugs went on at that time. Next it was time to play Scarlett O'hara(the arc) to the end in Rocky point for the age-outs. Those of us left playing gave it our all for those guys because they meant so much to us. Apparently they loved it because they were jumping up and down, screaming, and going nuts. After we did that dean gave us some time to just chill out and calm down.More hugging and picture taking. After all that, Hoppy walked in and told us that there might not be finals since the weather radar didn't look promising.There was not going to be ensemble rehearsal so we were going to have dinner and wait and see if things were postponed to see what time we'd leave for the stadium. He even said that we'd probably take a nap!(FREEE DAYYY!!) Yeah, finals is what you look forward to all summer, but when he said we might not have finals, I thought to myself " That's ok...today completed my summer and finals doesn't matter." Turns out the rain stopped and we were right on schedule and i'm pretty happy about that now. We drove by the stadium and it was pretty packed already, which got us all excited. We did our same kind of warm up for third day in a row. They had to take us to a site about 3 miles away from the stadium. Zak Ruffert called Brad to talk to the mello section at visual warm up. Zach was our tech during spring training and he was amazing. He is a wonderful teacher. It was great to hear some words of encouragement and congratulations from him before we went on. Brass Warm up- We sounded wonderful and after we were done all the staff came around and gave us hugs and thanked us. I was a mess again, crying towards the end of warm up. Just when I thought I was going to stop crying for at least another hour or so, the Baritones played the dissolving company front from the '87 show ( Appalachian Spring ) and I totally lost it. It was beautiful. Anyway, onto the busses. In the latter part of the season we started listening to certain songs to hype us up on the way to shows. Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", a punk cover of "my favorite things", and "spanish flea" by herb alpert.(we just called it the Dating game theme cause it sounded like it) We would sing along to Bohemian Rhapsody, and bang on stuff during my favorite things. Dean told us to make sure we buzz on our mouthpieces before gate so we stay warmed up, so for the last 3 days, the "Dating game theme" became our on bus warm up while Adrian played it on his trumpet. It was a lot of fun. I had an amazing finals performance and the corps did great. The crowd absolutely loved us and that's what it's all about. The bass drum tapped 4 times and we headed off the field. My summer was over and there I was, crying again...all that hard work payed off and produced this amazing product and now it was over. I ended the show in between Brian and Laura and that meant a lot to all 3 of us to be together. On the way off the field I could hear them crying...that was the last time we'd ever perform this show. Once we got in the tunnel we lined up as we always do. Sam said "dismissed" and we let it all out. The staff was cheering for us as we cried our eyes out. I hugged Laura and Brian first and then walked around and found Mary. Scotty the corps historian takes pictures of us during the summer...he took one of Mary and I at finals in 2002. He took one for us this year the same exact way so it's gonna be cool to have those. Well there ya have it, the most amazing experience of my life in a nutshell. I apologize for over using the words "amazing", "incredible", and "crying" but it's what the story called for. I get my pictures of the summer tomorrow. I took 10 rolls worth so they should be pretty fun to check out.
Thank you to everyone in the 2003 Cadets and thank you, the reader for keeping up with my crazy summer and for the fan mail...I think this entry makes up for any that I may have missed this summer. =) I know that 2004 will be another incredible summer full of new memories, but 2003 will always hold a special place in my heart.
