~Marching Through The Eye Of The Storm~

Chapter 6

July 25, 2017

It was the second day of band camp. The first was only for eight hours but the rest of the week was twelve hours. Front ensemble stayed inside and planned to do so until the last hour of long days. The rest of the band was outside for four hours marching and working on visual basics, then at noon, they went inside for and hour lunch break and then to the school auditorium for music for two hours then two hours tracking around the school in a parade block then dinner for and hour then doing drill until the day was over. The schedule varied from day to day, adding more time for drill some days or more time on music.

The highlight of everyone's day was food. The band parents cooked homemade meals for all of the kids. For lunch the first day, they had pulled pork sandwiches and pasta salad. No one could ever decide if the food was the best because it was or because they were so hungry and tired. Either way, it was amazing food.

Harper showed up to the practice field at 7:30 A.M. half an hour before they started. Hunter and Sarah had carpooled with her and Skylar so all four made their way together. They had to stop at the compound on the far side of the school for Skylar to grab a field marker, it was the flutes job to help set up the field, the mellos didn't have to do anything.

The only people at the field were Mr. Brady, Mr. Lemen and the three drum majors: Elliott who marched three years on Mellophone, Hope who marched two years on flute and one on piccolo, and Dakota who marched three years on sousaphone. All three drum majors were really nice and knew Harper, Hunter, and Skylar pretty well, especially Elliott and Hope.

"Hey, guys," Hunter greeted.

"Hi, Hunter, guys," Elliott smiled at seeing the new mello players, "So you're Sarah, right?"

Sarah nodded.

"My mellos,"Elliott sighed happily.

The four friends laughed at him.

Over the next fifteen minutes, everyone showed up and set up the side lines to be nice and neat. Each section was separated and very neat. Backpacks were in a line facing the same way then the instrument cases were next to each other creating a line in front of the line of backpacks and water jugs were in front of each person's case.

Section leaders made sure everyone put on sunscreen before they started, because nobody wanted to deal with the inevitable sunburns on the second day.

Right at 8:00 A.M. Everyone was running in time to the drum major hitting the gok block. They went around the field then sprinted after they cleared the last corner, racing to their water.

After two hours of working on marching technique then they had snack time. It was to keep food in people and keep people from passing out from a lack of energy. It was simple, a half a Costco muffin and a stem of grapes.

Then they worked on some visual stuff then section leaders gave each person their dot sheet. After Mr. Brady explained how it works, the vets helped the rookies find their first and second dots.

At noon, section by section they were all dismissed to go to lunch. They went through the cafeteria doors of the school and went through a line and then made their way to the tables set up in the commons.

Lunch was part of a sub sandwich and a brownie and a bag of chips and celery sticks.

"I forgot to grab Gatorade," Harper said as she turned to make her way back to the band parents handing red solo cups to some of the band kids.

"Can you grab me one?" Skylar asked.

Harper nodded and turned to make her way over. After she grabbed Skylar a lemon lime and herself a fruit punch Gatorade, she started back to the table when someone ran into her, causing her to drop both cups.