lesson for the day: people are dumb. even people who work for nasa. to understand why is too silly to explain here, but if you are really curious about today’s specific reason why people are dumb, you can just go read this series of emails that i have gotten over the past two days. it’s a bit long, but you might get a good laugh out of the absurdity.
last night was the division’s 3 sigma suds party. the 3 sigma suds are bottles of beer brewed by a couple of guys who are higher up in the division. it was actually pretty good for home-brewed beer, and i don’t even like beer that much. but the party was also fun. it started at 4:30 and i was there until the last people left at 9:30. we were just hanging out and talking (and slapping the west nile-carrying mosquitos off) and having a good time. it was neat to see everyone “outside” of work.
after i got home last night i unpacked the last of my boxes and discovered what i’d forgotten that i had. my high school treasures have reappeared! tons of photos, letters, notes written in class. a scrapbook with newspaper clippings, cartoons, certificates. a video of the marching band’s show from my senior year. i popped the tape into the vcr and sat down to watch.
i don’t know if this is something that everyone does or if it can simply be chalked up to my quirkiness, but when i think back to my last year of high school, there is always a single day that sticks out in my memory. as luck would have it, part of that day is recorded on the marching band tape that i found last night.
it was a saturday in october, 1995. we had all met at the band room early that morning and climbed on buses that took us to chapel hill–to unc–for our last band competition of the year. we were going to be performing on the field at kenan stadium, the huge football stadium where the tarheels play. (i guess they must have been out of town that saturday if we were able to use their field.) the video shows us marching onto the field to the tap of the snare. it shows leslie calling us to attention, it records our responding shout. we play our whole show, the music dips and swells. moments from the end of the show, just as we form into a long line and begin to march forward, the sun breaks through the clouds and lights the field. the sun coming out matches perfectly with the music; it’s as if we planned it. i sat there on my couch last night watching this scene of my life from 7 (has it been that long?) years ago, and although it may make me sound like a sentimental sap to say this, i got chills. just watching the video, i got chills.
of course the video doesn’t show the rest of that day. the bus ride, the laughter. changing into our uniforms, the warmup to marching onto the field, or what happened after we marched off it. it doesn’t show the group of seniors in the stands later that night, as the awards were announced. we didn’t win overall because our band was too small to compete with the 300-member bands from larger high schools, but we won our division. it doesn’t show us smiling, hugging, and then crying because it was our last marching competition, because we knew we wouldn’t be back next year to repeat our win, because we knew we’d be scattering as we started college. i know that marching band is considered by most to be a high school activity left to the weidos and band nerds, but i loved every minute of it. i hadn’t expected to cry that night, but i should have known better. i knew i would be sad to see it end.
later that night, i met up my family. i wasn’t going back to charlotte with the band that night, instead, i was going with my family to see my grandmother who lived in chapel hill. but i was with the band to get my things, and help clean up. as we were loading the bus in the floodlight-lit parking lot, the braves won the world series. i didn’t get to watch the game, a glavine masterpiece. but i heard the final out live in the parking lot with my sister on her walkman. we cheered, the band buses pulled away, and we drove back to grandmother’s to watch the post-game celebration on tv. i stayed up late with the lights off and tv glowing as the champagne flowed in atlanta.
i always say i didn’t like high school. but it had its moments.
(12:37 p.m.)
tech is getting a new basketball player from…sweden. yay.
