I have been a band parent since my eldest son entered sixth grade back in 2007. That has meant putting up with practicing that can sound like a cat who accidentally got his tail caught in a blender, driving to impossibly hard to locate high school auditoriums in time-stoppered backwaters of the DFW metroplex for obscure and inexplicable tootling contests, working at making popcorn in the concession stand to raise money for marching band, and attending football games solely for the privilege of watching the halftime show. It was hard work. It is hare-raising (I did NOT misspell that, it created rabbits, and didn’t add a single hair to my floppy mass of gray head-mold). And I am going to miss it terribly.
Wednesday night was the last concert as a band parent. My youngest, the Princess, will enter high school next year and will give up being in band for more tech-related training in Turner High School’s engineering program for high school kids. She is excited about it. Focus has already shifted. And I won’t have to pay for another horn lesson again for the rest of my life. It was a good concert. They played a medley from West Side Story, Don’t Stop Believing from Journey, and a classical piece conducted by the student teacher working with the Long band program this year. It was also the last. Another part of my life which lasted for most of the last decade has come to an end.
