Band Kids

And so it is that we come to the end of the school year.  For our household, it's the end of school, period.  Well, kind of.  Jill graduated from USI and is headed to grad school, and Seth is graduating from high school, heading for Butler.  I am heading to the poor farm, but will have a really nice nursing home in the end.  Or at least I'd better.

So lately, I've been doing some reminiscing about the past four years.  It was weird to have a graduation at last -- since the kids were homeschooled, we'd never had one till Jill walked across the stage.  That was a special moment.  And now we are coming up on Seth's graduation, which totally boggles my mind.  I was reading this the other day, and remembering Seth going off to "real school", with Thomas' admonitions to point out seniors who might cause him grief, and Jill threatening to put anyone in the dumpster  -- in tiny little pieces, no less -- who had the audacity to mess with her little brother.  We're all pretty sure that she meant it too.

And then I came across a video the other day, and it brought me back to Seth's band days.  The days where, if you read the above link, he spent most of the time sleeping, because they didn't DO anything.  Once they finally did, the majority of this ragtag first-time-the-school-had-a-band were percussionists, including Seth.  I can't even remember what they had him play, but I do know that it involved a drumstick (or most likely, just a stick, considering the primeval band they were) that had a soft ball (think clown nose) on the end.  Seth was excited that he had a brief solo, which was pretty cool.  So we went to the concert and then came his solo.  He pounded away beautifully, then finished with a flourish which included the ball flying off and up about fifteen feet in the air before gravity claimed it.  The look of shock on Seth's face was pretty priceless, till he grabbed that ball up and held it aloft, above his head, nodding like "oh YEAH.  I got this."  The crowd roared.

There's a video tape of it somewhere, and I wish I could see it, cause it was one of those "you couldn't repeat that if you tried" moments that I just love to see.  Likewise for this kid, who recovered quite nicely, and with the respect the national anthem deserves.