Louie Louie Night

Molly Gittins, Me, Tindy Weston, and Ben Weston

Ok, I suppose it's time to bring up my past. For those of you who don't know...I am a band nerd. Yup. Or at least I was senior year of high school. And, I loved it! Last night was Louie Louie Night. I'll explain. My band teacher, Mr. Qualls, is in his 25th year of teaching band. To celebrate he invited all of his students from the past 25 years to come back to Fremont High School and participate in the pep band at the boys basketball game. It's called Louie Louie Night because the only pep song we played the whole night was Louie Louie! I guess you'd have to be in the band to appriciate the humor. :) And we all got to wear leighs.

Me and my cymbols. You can't hear in the picture, but I'm making the noise for the cymbols with my mouth, because it was while the game was going on and you aren't allowed to play instrments while time is running.

They were having a BBQ in the band room at 4:00pm, but Aaron had class at 3:00, so we missed it. :( But I packed up our stuff and picked Aaron up on campus right at 3:50 when he got out so we could get up there as soon as possible. One problem though, I forgot my flute! Oops. When I was in high school I played the cymbols in the marching band, but during pep band season they have a drum set, so there is really no need for cymbols. And since the pep music is simple enough (I'm not very good at the flute) I usually always played my flute during pep band. So, I didn't have my flute, but I decided to play the cymbols anyway. And that ended up working out just fine because there were so many former students there that all the percussion couldn't share the drum set, so they got out the marching equipment anyway, so there were a couple other people playing the cymbols too.

This is an action shot!

Funny story: Right after we'd gotten in the gym, and were waiting for the JV game to get over, a kid tapped me on my shoulder and asked, "What grade are you in?" I laughed and replied, "I am about five years graduated." He said, "Ok, never mind." I must have given him a questioning look, because he pointed to his friend and said, "He just wanted to know because you are playing his cymbols and if you were younger than him he was going to trade you (I was playing the medium sized set, and he had the giant set), but you definately pull rank on him, so you just keep doin' what your doin'."

Lincoln playing Tindy's trumpet

For most of the game Aaron and the boys sat in the stand right next to the band. But he brought the kids over to see me for a little bit. I was thinking that the boys would think my cymbols were the coolest things in the world. Who doesn't love something you bang together to make a loud noise? But my cymbols couldn't compare to Molly and Tindy's trumpets. First, Molly showed them hers and let them push the buttons. Even Ivan got a kick out of that. Then, I let Lincoln stay and stand by me while we played, thinking that if he saw me crash the cymbols together, he'd think I was cool. Nope, he watched the trumpet section (which I was standing in the middle of, because that's where all my friends were. I never stood in the right section when I was in high school, no reason to start now!) the whole time. After we played Tindy let him hold her trumpet, and it was all over from there. He figured out where to blow, and how to push the buttons. It was pretty cute. I suppose I could be ok if my son turned into a trumpet player. Some of my best friends are trumpets...

Here's your "Where's Krystal" for the day. Can you find me?