Remote pride

Day 20 of 31 at TWT!

"MOMMY! My teacher wants me to share something about you in the marching band because we're going to learn about the marching band!" Sweetie's yelling out of the dining room from the middle of remote kindergarten.

Twisting myself around on the couch to hear her better, I pause in the new excavator book Rainbow and I are reading for about the twentieth time in the past two days. "What?"

"Yeah! We're going to watch a halftime show and she asked me to share something about you!"

A little warning would've been nice, but of course! I scoot Rainbow Girl off my lap, whispering "Mommy will be right back," and charge up the stairs two at a time. "Do you want me to get my horn?"

"Yeah! Your horn!" she shouts up to me, and I hear her announce to her class, "Mommy's gonna get her horn!" 

I peek into the extra bedroom for my hat, but it's not where I thought it was, and I think the class is waiting on me, so I grab my horn and rush back downstairs. 

"WOWWWWW! Oh my goodness, boys and girls! So cool!" her teacher exclaims in overly-enthusiastic kindergarten-teacher style as I hold my horn up to Sweetie's Chromebook. "Mrs. M, can you tell us what that is?!"

I recite my well-practiced answer for questioners of all ages, since no one ever knows what my horn is. "It's a mellophone. It's a marching French Horn!" (When people ask what I play and it's not there to show, I always add, "It's like a trumpet with a big bell," but right now, they can see it, so I skip that part of the explanation.) At my side, off screen, Rainbow Girl tugs at my shirt, babbles something I can't quite hear, and gazes up at my horn.

Me (closest) and my row in band, playing our horns at the "Skull Session" show before a home game.

"Can you PLAY something on your mellophone?" the teacher asks. 

"I was just going to ask if you wanted me to play something!" I grin. "How about if I play a little bit of 'Fight the Team'?" 

I'm transported back to one summer evening on the stage at Picnic with the Pops, when the quirky Maestro Albert-Georg Schramm of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra was so intrigued by my mellophone that he excitedly declared in the middle of our joint show that he had learned about a new instrument from us, and proceeded to ask me to demonstrate it to the whole crowd. (As squad leader of E Row, my seat was so close to his podium that his sweat flung on me with every animated conducting gesture!) I was terrified to make a mistake in front of my fellow bandmates and the symphony, but I played a perfect solo chorus of Fight the Team as my parents went crazy in their seats. 

Playing for a class of kindergarteners isn't nearly as intimidating, but I was at my best back then. Now, I take a deep breath and hope the valves don't stick too much. I've barely touched it in years, but my fingers and mouth don't let me down, and luckily, neither does my 16th birthday present. It's banged up and dirty, but only one valve sticks partway for a second, and I make it through one pretty decent chorus, peeking around the huge bell to keep one eye on the little self-view on Sweetie's screen to make sure the class can see the whole horn for the whole song. 

As I play, Sweetie's eyes sparkle as she looks back and forth between me and her class, sitting up tall. Her teacher starts clapping along to the song, and all the little kindergarteners in their muted squares clap too, forming a wiggly collage of silent cheering. 

"Woohoo!" her teacher cheers when I finish, and asks the class to thank me. I grin and answer her questions about halftime shows while Rainbow interrupts, still off-screen but chattering and trying to see if she can make a sound on my horn by putting the mouthpiece all the way in her tiny mouth. As the teacher starts sharing a halftime show on her screen, Rainbow hums into the mouthpiece and decides that she's successfully playing. When she finally loses interest, I run the horn back upstairs before it gets broken and take a better look around for my hat.

Running back downstairs, I sneak into the dining room and plop my hat on Sweetie's head as she watches the halftime video. Her biggest grin stretches across her face. 

proudly wearing my band hat in kindergarten!

Another perk of remote learning: the ability to spontaneously bring a family expert into a lesson! 

(There are better quality videos of Fight the Team, but I wanted to find one I was in! I'm in the middle of the front row of the band, just to the right of the director's podium.)

Family Reunion

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

"Do you want to stand and play beside Daddy?" Husband's marching spot for this year's annual TBDBITL reunion was absolutely perfect: the last person in the last row of the block.
After all, when she "played" her toy horn during the warm-up for a parade and for a song in an empty seat behind me at an alumni band concert, Sweetie really thought she was part of the band. On the ride to campus earlier, she'd declared "I can be in the 'hio State Marching Band someday!" in between bursts of enthusiastic horn-blowing.

Clutching that toy horn, she scampered up beside him, blonde ponytail swinging. Errrnt! Errrnt! The little hums of her plastic horn mixed with the resounding tones of nearly 700 real alumni instruments booming out "Buckeye Battle Cry", and her little feet pumped alongside the generations of legs marking time during the slow step.

<3

As the pickup notes to the faster chorus approached, I knew the band would take off down the field and figured she'd stay standing there, but she had other plans. Suddenly, that bright blonde ponytail was whipping back and forth as those little legs flailed down the field, scurrying to catch up to Daddy!

As practice went on, she worked hard to pick up her feet, hold up her horn, and even listen to the director. "24 counts!" she'd repeat. "What's 24 counts mean?"

Reunion weekend always brings a reminder that this band is truly a family, but there's definitely something special about bringing your family to the band, too! This year, the 100-year-old i-Dotter stole the show in the stadium, but our 3-year-old marcher stole plenty of hearts at practice!

How the best band built the best version of me

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

What if the kids are bored? What if the other staff members don't like it? What if I don't do a good job? What if nobody wants to come back? What if... I take a deep breath and glance back at the awesome picture I put on my title slide. It's one of my favorites, with me as squad leader in the middle of a proud hats-off during my last year in the OSU Marching Band. I glance out across our club members, half-glad there aren't too many and half-wishing there were more today. I think back to my colleague's encouraging reply after I'd sent him my slides yesterday. Okay. Go.

A few minutes later, blood is pounding through my body as hard as when I dove so deeply into creating my slides this weekend that several hours somehow disappeared. I can feel the rush of marching again as I explain how every incredible moment in uniform was built on innumerable hours of diligent, intense, relentless practice. How every roar of the crowd came from countless choices of intentional discomfort and sacrifice: 2-5 hours a day, every day, all summer, repeatedly executing precise fundamentals with militaristic precision. In the heat. In the rain. When I was exhausted. When I was sore. When I wanted to sleep in. Analyzing every movement with a running checklist in my brain. Starting every time with the most basic elements of posture and in-place movements, even when I could have done them in my sleep, because I didn't want to do anything on default. Woody Hayes said that "you're either getting better or you're getting worse," and I wasn't about to get worse.

I run my fingers over the now-taped-up spine of my old spiral notebook and brush its coarse, battered cover against my palm before I pass it to a student. The E-7 notebook. Covered in quotes to inspire myself on the hard days and filled with precious tidbits of feedback from the mentor who would go on to become one of my best friends. My journey to earning the spot reserved for the best marcher in my row, to make sure that I wouldn't get complacent, to keep myself truly getting better every day. Just holding it gives me shivers, 15 years later.

All those hours on the field, devouring feedback after every drill, scrawling notes before jumping back on the line and snapping back to attention for more. Conversations with my friend about hard work, courage, leadership, and life, as we built the trust that was so essential for my growth. The determination with which I cut up the descriptions from our fundamentals packet and rewrote his feedback under each section to study, memorize, and turn into a mental checklist that ran through my head every time I marched. Back straight, horn straight, eyes ahead, legs up, toes strained downward, march "to the wall", don't dip shoulder, don't flash early, relax neck, throw head back, slam back down,  tense shoulders, "hit the table", don't dip, snap leg up...

It's surreal to stand in front of a classroom now, so far removed from those days, and see colleagues and students flipping through those tattered pages. I feel like they can finally see who I am, now that they can see where I came from. This is what I mean when I say I'm hardworking. This is the culture of challenging support, trust, and accountability that I dream of recreating in my classes and in our school.

"Did you guys see what it takes to become the elite of the elite?" the colleague in charge of our club jumps in. He starts to tie my ideas to his hopes for our future discussions and gives me a fist bump, and my blood and breath begin to find their way back to a normal pace.

"I can use this with my classes, right?" As we scurry to class, one colleague excitedly waves the planning worksheet I led the group through.

"I was starting to write up something as you were talking, and then you had it made for us!" another colleague declares. "And wow, those old notes of yours... how do you even learn how to take 22 1/2 inch steps?!" We giggle as I try to explain using maximum toe point to train your muscles to hit the yardline precisely with the ball of your foot every 8 steps. "I think we should keep checking in with our plans all year!" she continues, and I feel hope floating from my toes to my curls.

What it takes

Tuesdays at Two Writing Teachers!

A box of lefts, left flank, into a box of rights, right flank, into a box of right 270 spin turns... I stared across the parched grass as I visualized the drill. Furrowing my eyebrows, I began to march with a running checklist in my head: horn perfectly straight, legs up, toes pointed, shoulders back, eyes forward, don't tilt my head before the flank, don't dip my horn after the flash...

I'd been working for this for over two years now. Ever since I'd been lucky enough to stand mere feet away from The Ohio State University Marching Band's majestic rendition of the Navy Hymn on the floor of Skull Session, I had to wear those crossbelts and spats someday, gripping a spotless horn with military precision. It didn't matter that I'd have to master a brass instrument in just a few years. It didn't matter that I'd never excelled at anything requiring the least bit of physical coordination. I already loved my high school marching band experience, and I knew, without a doubt, that this would be my niche in college. I was going to be in that band.

The one time my mom had made me ask my high school band director a question, I'd put it off for days. So when I actually mustered the courage to initiate a conversation with the man who petrified me to the point that I only wore white and gray shirts during marching band season (because who wants to be pointed out as "the flute in the red shirt" through a bullhorn?!), my parents knew I was serious.

I'd only ever practiced my flute enough to get by, but I worked tirelessly between my weekly private lessons to learn the mellophone. To the amusement of current veteran band members, I showed up a year early at the band's optional summer marching clinics, practically bouncing with excitement. After that whole extra summer practicing my horn flashes over and over on local school football fields, I could finally do them fluidly and quickly. Now, I loved the surge of power I felt each time I threw my head back and slammed my horn back down, returning it to its precise straight position in milliseconds.

My time was finally here, and I was ready. At the end of the summer, I would finally have the chance to make my dream come true.

Every morning, I went to my high school marching band field to march. For two hours, I made up simple and complex drills, practicing every fundamental in order. In-place movements, flanks, step-kicks and swaggers. Sloopy, Ramp, and school songs up and down the field. Two hours every day of discipline, precision, and intense concentration. Days of summer sun beating down on dry grass and well-worn yardline ruts. Weeks of pretending not to notice the curious eyes of passing pedestrians and honking motorists. Months of sweat pouring down every inch of my persistent body.

Hours, days, weeks, and months of courage and tenacity: that's what it took to put on those crossbelts for five years of glorious autumn Saturdays. And for five years, reality far surpassed that long-ago dream.

My 5th year. As Squad Leader of my row, I'm on this end.

(Our class motto this year is "Be your best self!" My students have been writing stories recalling when they've been their best selves, and this was the story I wrote alongside them. They'd love your comments too!)

Paying it forward

18 of 31 at Two Writing Teachers!

"He makes me sound like I'm the most wonderful person in the whole world!" My mouth hung open as I read my assistant band director's letter of recommendation for my study-abroad program in Spain. Wow. He really thinks this highly of me?! This is incredible! "Look! Read this part!" I wiggled the paper at my boyfriend, jabbing my finger at different sections.

Nine years later, I still have a copy of that letter. I haven't looked at it in a while, but I don't need to look at it to remember how it made me feel. In fact, I can almost recite the ending... something about how I'd be a fantastic ambassador for Ohio State and the United States of America. Just remembering still sparks an incredulous giddiness that floats up inside of me.

This wasn't the usual "oh-she's-responsible-dependable-and-hard-working..." blah, blah, blah. This made my heart soar. 225 band members, and he'd taken the time to make me sound that special. Suddenly, he wasn't just my assistant band director, but a role model who noticed my hard work and believed in me.

I'll never forget the confidence and self-worth that letter kindled in my heart. Maybe I really was that special. I could do great things with my life. I wanted to work even harder.

Nine years later, I've now written my first letter of recommendation for a student. Because of that cherished letter, I didn't view S.'s request as simply another line on my to-do list. I viewed it as an honor, an opportunity to give her that same feeling my band director gave to me. So I created and crafted, reflected and revised, choosing just the right words to let her (and the universities) know how special she is.

And as my gel pen swished my signature smoothly across the plush, elegant paper, I shivered to see my words emblazoned below my school's stately letterhead. So official. So important. Just like his.

Nine years later, my words now hold the power to make another soul soar.

Following the words

at Two Writing Teachers!

I've been meaning to write about an exciting project happening in my classroom, and I was going to write about it today...

but then I drove home with the windows open, and the sky was so blue, and the air had that delightful fall feeling that's somehow warm and chilly at the same time,

and then lines of a poem were bouncing through my mind, begging to be wrestled with and laid out into something real.

So please check back later this week for a peek into the cool things that are happening in my classroom for the next few weeks!  Meanwhile, here's the poem, which started out as a nature poem, and then when I decided the first line was going to be "now", it turned into something that wanted to feel like "After Many Springs" by Langston Hughes.



Autumn Echoes

Now,
when the tired sun sinks low a little earlier,
stretching long shadows that twine together
reaching for something they can't quite grasp

and wispy clouds spread like freshly carded cotton
suspended in a sky so blue you might fall up
and soar away like diving into clear water,

the playful breeze carries whiffs of chill,
teasing ghosts of goosebumps across my arms
that vanish almost before they appear.

What are those faint echoes shimmering on the wind?

Fleeting shouts and giggles,
splashes of color on a silvery bell,
spindly shadows marching as one.

Sometimes it's worth it.

at Two Writing Teachers!

Chook.  I look over to see one of my students snapping a picture of the SMARTboard with his phone.  Cute.

"Lo puedo grabar?" (Can I record it?) asks another, grabbing her phone. Didn't expect that! 
"Sure!" I grin and sit back.

A few are in our school's marching band.  Some have never even seen a marching band.  I don't think any of them have been to an OSU football game.  Some haven't been to an American football game.

I watch and listen to them watching and listening.



Wide eyes.  Wiggly bodies.  Pointing arms.

"Where is it going to make the Ohio?"

"No look, there's four of them, all over!"

"We did like this last week for Homecoming!"  (Once a year, our town's high school bands have always done a simplified version, with our town's name instead of Ohio.)

"WHOA, that is so cool, how do you guys go through each other like that?"

"Oh yeah, look, they have to go through each other right there!"

"Isn't it hard to march like that while you're playing?"

"Who's taking the video?"

"Sweet, look, I see how it's making Ohio!"

"Aw, they separated you and your husband?"

"How did you guys ever learn how to do that?"

"You guys practiced that a lot, right?"

"3:30 in the morning?!"

"How come the guy who makes the dot is so special?"

"WHOA look at the 4 Ohios!"

"Wow, how many people are in that stadium?"

Sometimes it's worth it to take five minutes of class time to weave the threads of a connection that will last all year.  Just like sometimes it's worth it to practice even when you're too tired, to get up at 3:30 in the morning, and to cram another thing into your already busy schedule.

Tradition is worth it.  Pride is worth it.  Connections are worth it.

Time and Change

This year, a 38-year-old chapter in the history of the Ohio State University Marching Band is ending: Dr. Jon Woods is retiring after 28 years as its director. (Plus 10 years as assistant director before that!)  Most current and former band members, myself included, literally cannot imagine the band without Dr. Woods.  (He became director the year I was born!)  What will it be like to not have his grandfatherly, good-natured yet demanding presence around?  What would gameday morning be like without seeing him goad you into stretching exercises on the field at 6:30am by yelling "ENTHUSIASM!!!" and bursting into jumping jacks and push-ups himself?  (Now as you're picturing that, remember he's a gray-haired 70-something who usually walks with a shuffle!)  Countless college and high school marching bands have been influenced by his innovations, and he has certainly played a huge part in contributing to TBDBITL's tradition of excellence.

While he will continue teaching in the School of Music through June, marching band season is basically over after the bowl game and he has already directed his final home game.  At that game, he received the biggest honor the band can give someone: dotting the "i" in Script Ohio.  (At the beginning of the video, you can see him talking with OSU President Gordon Gee, and then you can see the i-dot from field view.  He is lead out by the drum major and the senior sousaphone player who gave up the spot.)  I was able to be at the game and his i-dot brought tears to my eyes.



Tonight, we (current band members + alumni) are going to Dr. Woods' house to surprise him with a serenade in honor of the end of his final marching band season.  This is something the band traditionally does to honor important people who are leaving the university: coaches, presidents, athletic directors, etc.  We surprise the person by showing up at their house and putting on a little private concert for them of all our traditional school songs.  When I was in band, we played at Athletic Director Andy Geiger's house when he retired.  The most famous instance of a serenade was in 1987 when the band played for Earle Bruce the night that he got fired on M*ch*g*n week.  Rachel Maddow actually talked about this moment in her show on MSNBC earlier this year:



Hopefully that gives you an idea of what it's all about!  It's a surprise to Dr. Woods and I'm not sure how he'll react but I'm sure he will be happy and honored.  We are so excited to be a part of this traditional "thank-you" to him.   It's one of those wonderful moments where I can feel all the honor and tradition of the band's history flowing through me, reminding that it's so much bigger than my own experience.  In the words of our Alma Mater: "Time and change will surely show / how firm thy friendship, O-HI-O."

The few, the proud...

It's 9:30 on Saturday night.  Baggage claim at our airport usually has a fairly sparse crowd (generally just one or two of the 6 carousels running at once), but now it's PACKED.  A sea of people spread from wall to wall, with barely enough room to walk between one another: Scouts, young adults, families towing kids in strollers.  Grizzled Marines sport motorcycle jackets emblazoned with "Leathernecks".  Color guard members proudly hoist the military service flags.  Banners and posters wave in the air, calling out "Welcome home!" and "Thank you for your service!" in bold letters.  Almost everyone has a flag in hand.

We wait, instruments in hand, young and old together.  Gray pants and red polos intermixed with sharp crossbelts and plumed hats.  Even though it's Saturday night, even though the football game just ended a couple hours ago, we are here.  Suddenly a buzz runs through the crowd and our director starts to wave his baton.  They're here!  They're coming!

Everyone starts peering toward the escalators trying to catch a glimpse as we start to play.  "Caissons", "Anchors Away", "Marine Hymn", "Air Force March", "Semper Paratus".  I can barely see over the crowd but every few minutes I spot a wheelchair or a gray head proudly wearing a service branch hat.  "Military Medley, again," our director shouts and off we go some more!  "Caissons", "Anchors Away", "Marine Hymn", "Air Force March", "Semper Paratus".  A few times I'm lucky enough to catch a giant smile and eyes lit up with joy as a wheelchair or some unsteady legs with a cane come down the escalator to their first glimpse of us.  Mostly it's a blur of "Military Medley, again!" or occasionally "Navy Hymn!" "Stars and Stripes!"  Even a few "Sloopy!"s.  A small gap.  Then... "one more vet!" Our director cranes his neck toward the escalator, looking for a clue to the service branch... "Air Force!"

A lady gets on the loudspeaker and asks for a moment of silence.  The bagpipers quietly start the moving strains of "Amazing Grace".  We all sing "God Bless America" and then...

Tap, tap, tap.  We form up to march out: first the young, the "real" band.  We alumni fall in step behind them and together we snake through the crowd, yelling along to the familiar cadences we share.  Now we can really see everyone.  Volunteers and families and vets with grateful eyes reach out to us and say "Thank you!"  "Thanks so much for being here,"  "It means so much!" as we march by.  I think of my two Marine grandfathers and straighten my back with pride as I pass.  I just wish they could have been able to experience this.

This is a returning Honor Flight, a new addition to the long list of gigs we play at, and my new favorite for sure.  As members of a band with military roots and as regular American citizens, we are proud to be a part of saying "Thank you" to those who so deserve it.

happiness is a fistbump and sweltering heat

Tonight was my current school's Curriculum Night ("Meet the Teacher Night", whatever you want to call it) so I just got home.  Not much of a day to write, but I had to record this little tidbit:

At our Curriculum Night, the related arts teachers have to talk for a couple minutes in front of the entire gym-ful of parents about our class, before the parents traipse off to visit the "core" teachers in their classrooms.  This couple of minutes is one of my most dreaded moments of the year, because I hate talking into a microphone.  I think my voice sounds like a five year old and I'm constantly afraid of talking too fast or too slow or too loud or too soft or not clearly enough or something.  However, this was my 3rd year doing it this way and I'll admit... it wasn't really that bad this year.  Guess I'm getting used to it.  After I did my little "this is our class in 2 minutes", I walked back over to the side of the gym, where several parents who couldn't find seats were standing.  All of a sudden, this dad leaned over to me and said "You have the most outstanding attitude!"  He made my day right there... and then gave me a fistbump.  That's right, a FISTBUMP.  From a parent.  About my 2 minute speech.  Funny and uplifting at the same time.  It was great!

And... for those of you who read last week's post, here's a follow-up picture.  800+ current and former marching band members united in music and tradition on the field in near-100-degree heat.  I don't think I've EVER been that hot, but it was still worth it!  (I'm in the "h" of the script on the bottom of the picture, near the crossbar of the goalpost.   My husband was in the left-hand script.  One of the guys who marched was 93 years old!)

(photo credit: Mel Ponzi)

A "Score" of Friendships

If you stumbled into our local pizza shop about 10pm on certain Monday nights, I'm sure you'd think it's an odd sight.  First of all, who eats pizza at 10pm, other than maybe college kids?  And those are DEFINITELY not college kids.  Well, most of them, at least.

There are more than a few gray heads, but some that are just a mature brown or blond.  Then there's that young couple... maybe they're the college kids.  Is it a family?  Maybe, from the way they laugh and talk and pat each other on the back, and move from joking to serious in the blink of an eye.  But they don't really look alike at all!

There's a pilot, a couple of engineers, a few teachers, an architect... and who knows what else!  Some are retired, a couple are just starting their careers, and some are right in the middle. There are men and women, married and single people, rambunctious story-tellers and quiet listeners.  There's a blind guy who has the most positive attitude you've ever seen.  There was a smart old guy who told the most amazing stories about World War II and science and life, but you'll have to catch up with him in Heaven now.  Then there's us... everyone else still calls us the "newlyweds" even though we've been married for four years now!

So how did we all end up at the pizza shop at 10pm, talking and carrying on until they start running the vacuum cleaner as the signal that we'd better leave before they kick us out?  Music and tradition.  We are all proud marching band alumni, and though we might not have anything else in common, that is enough.  We might be as different as a trumpet is from a sousaphone, but we fit together to make perfect songs.  We have represented our university through time and change.  We have tried out, worked tirelessly, learned and grown and become ourselves in the context of the same sacred traditions.  And we still come together a few times a month to share ourselves with each other through music.  18 years old or 90 years old, we can play together and laugh together and cry together because we are tied together through the Band.

And on Saturday, 800 of us will show a football stadium full of fans that a single shared experience, full of pride and tradition, can build connections that span decades and personalities and life.