Ok, time to head out and get stuff before going to watch finals live for me for the first time since …2007. I think it is an interesting tradition each year for those of us who have marched or are just huge fans. We change our profiles; we start paying attention to the scores. We become vociferous and even opinionated about the outcomes. However, in the end it’s not for us. It’s for the current members, its for the current activity and its growth and survival. Each year we seem to see it shrinking, but each year it seems to come back and be bigger than life. Believe it or not there are some things DCI is doing right ( yes I said that). Tomorrow, the next day, and in the next week our profile pics will return to who we are today. The youthful exuberance of yesterday will be replaced with the aged reality of the now. The fever of DCI will be laid waste by the challenges of everyday life. Kids will be back to school and need transportation and lunches. Jobs will once again be the focus and the lawn we haven’t mowed for two weeks is way overdue. Summer gives way to fall, and we start thinking about family visits and apple pie. DCI will go onto the backburner and into hibernation for many of us, and another summer will have passed (they go quicker every year). I have experienced drum corps in a unique way for the last five years, but I am not sure I see myself continuing that in the future. That’s OK because one way or another summer will come again, and like migrating sparrows returning home we will look forward to the competition, the controversy, the friends, the new uniforms and the latest twist all over again. In 30 years if many of us are still here we will be talking about how great a show was that everyone hated in the moment, and undoubtedly someone will be griping about the way it used to be. Today’s kids will see gyms full of hover beds and complain how they had to drag aero beds around and blow them up manually, and how they had to wait for cell coverage to call home not have their every movement transmitted online by Google glasses. Will we have a new champion tonight? I don’t know, but the anticipation leading up to is worth the wait. Thinking about it makes us feel alive. In the end though none of it matters, not the scores, not the outcome, or even the controversies; all that matters is that it goes on, and that the activity finds new paths, new traditions, and new fans. Finally, I know I have been very outspoken this season about many things. I also know that sometimes my brain mouth filter is inadequate, but I want to say from the bottom of my heart if I have offended you in any way…..suck it! Peace out, Taters
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 18:55:19 +0000