A Junior High marching band...

Christel, my wife, is a music teacher for two K-8 schools in the area. She has been doing this for 13 years since we have been up here. Before that she was a psycho-social developer for three special needs children. Ours. Their special needs were that they needed a mother. She is great at both callings.

Christel is an incredible teacher who doesn't think she is doing anything for the Kingdom. However, whenever we are shopping or at a football game at the high school all of these kids come running up to her and hoping that she recognizes them in this different surrounding. They squeal out, "Mrs. Biasell, Mrs. Biasell!" with such glee it is charming to hear. Then they talk to her about their lives, some about music and mostly about their families and personal lives. This is the Kingdom.

Well, tomorrow is the Oakhurst Mountain Heritage Day Parade. It has been going on for a long time. This year Rusty and his wife Sara, who own the Met Cinema (a five screen multiplex) in town, are the grand marshals. And Christel's combination of the two schools Junior High (grades 5-8) Marching Band will participate in it. I just got back from watching their practice at one of the schools. There are about 75 kids in the combined band. Each of them had an instrument of some kind. No uniforms. Most of these kids have never marched in a parade. Some are going to be riding in a flatbed truck and most will be marching.

But what I want to talk about is the noise they make between songs. Each are just blowing stuff, hitting drums, spraying spit out of their trombones on each other, etc. Then she blows the whistle and they stop (most stop) and she tweets off the beat and they start up playing music. They are playing a recognizable song. Albeit, it is "Let's go Band!"

But in between the songs it is chaos. Or is it? I watch her and she is talking, giving instructions and tips to some of the musicians, unfazed by it all but very aware of what is going on. When she finishes with the individuals then she puts the whistle in her mouth and blows out a single tweet, pauses, then four more, and it music.

This group of kids who are going to be marching tomorrow will remember this experience for the rest of their lives. Every time they see a parade, they will remember their days in school when they were with Mrs. Biasell's Marching Band instead of sitting home, watching cartoons on television.