Lately, I've been having a bit of fun reconnecting with high school classmates on Facebook, particularly the group of kids I used to hang out with in the school band, chorus and school plays. Our school had a marching band, a concert band that did two concerts per year, and a stage (jazz) band. Both the marching and stage bands were competitive, and although we were a small school with a small band and even smaller budget, we did all right for ourselves back in those days. We had a marvelous band teacher whom we all still adore, and as he's on Facebook too (having since left teaching to go into the ministry -- I claim we rotten kids drove him straight to Jesus), it's been fun being in touch with him as well as my old friends.
I played the xylophone in the marching and concert bands, and the piano in the jazz band. Here's a shot I scanned from my yearbook... and no, we weren't ALLOWED to smile; judges would knock points off for that!
So I got the idea to start a special Facebook group for all the former students of this teacher, and I'm really pleased with the response so far... several dozen members already, and more great photos uploaded to reminisce over. Sadly, we've lost a few of our former friends already over the years, but this gives us a place to remember them with love. Who knew Facebook would be so much fun?
My favorite thing so far was finding the one and only audio recording of a championship marching band competition we'd entered during my graduating year of 1979. This tape survived 30 years of neglect and abuse by me, but it's the ONLY evidence I have of my year as a xylophone-playing percussionist. Time of my young life, for sure.
If you're interested, you can listen in here. When you hear those pretty-sounding bells, that was ME (and that xylophone was damned heavy, I can tell you that). The insane-sounding people screaming from time to time, obliterating the music? Our parents... and I am now convinced they all must have been nipping at the schnapps that day. But hey, they were our biggest fans.
