Good and Bad

So this morning I wake with both good and bad news...

On the good front, the Beechwood Marching Tigers performed in the state band contest yesterday. The Class A semi-finals were at Butler High School in Louisville from 10 AM until 2:30. Beechwood performed at 1:45 PM, and they had easily their worst performance of the year. The wind played havoc with the band's props, blowing one side of the front "wall" down (which was distracting as the black boards that make up the wall starting "walking" in the wind before collapsing in domino fashion) and--even worse--blowing over the tallest flags in the "bridge" in the middle of the field, meaning that some of the band members (my daughter included) had to deal with the fact that there were big, orange, metal poles lying across their marching paths. The band finished second in the semi-final competition behind Williamstown. It was good enough to go on to the finals (the top four finishers in semi-finals do), but they finished a full three points behind Williamstown, which in marching band competition is a HUGE gap.

They weren't discouraged, though, and in the finals competition they absolutely NAILED their performance. Afterwards their band director told them, in effect, that it didn't really matter whether they won or lost anymore. They had been PERFECT out on the field at finals, and if they didn't win, then the other team just had a better show. I thought that perhaps he KNEW they weren't going to win, and he was preparing them for it. But that turned out not to be the case. In the end, during the awards ceremony at Papa John's stadium at 11:30 last night, it DID come down to either Williamstown or Beechwood as the other two finalists had already been named fourth place and third place. And the announcer said, "And the second place team in Class A is..." and held that pause for dramatic effect. When he shouted "Williamstown High School!" the fans of Williamstown cheered, sure, but the Beechwood contingent--all of us sitting together in one section of the stadium--erupted in chaos. We knew we had won! I have never been so proud of my daughter and of all of the members of the Beechwood band. They had worked so hard for that moment. We were so giddy that I hardly even noticed how tired I was on the two hour drive home last night (or...this morning actually).

On the bad side, though, I woke up this morning to find that, before leaving for Louisville yesterday morning, I had left the refrigerator door slightly open. EVERYTHING in the refrigerator was at room temperature, and based on the research that I did online, probably had been that way since about 3 PM yesterday. So I filled up two garbage bags full of ruined food, and I'm off to the grocery store in a few minutes.

Ah well. You gotta take the bad with the good!

I've posted video of the band on a couple of different occasions. Here's one more: