I have it on good authority that tomorrow will be a beautiful day.  I just don’t listen to the weatherman!  It wouldn’t rain on my parade!  I got to sit in with the Bryan City Band at rehearsal (the director found me a suitable tuba, thank you!) and conduct my piece.  He asked me before rehearsal began how I was going to start.  Holding the tuba, I held one hand up and started going one, two… down, up (down beat is one, up beat is two).  But how was I going to set the tempo for the band to follow?  Get it in your head, give a little suggestive beat to the ensemble and BRING IT!

A few of the selections were familiar.  Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger is a piece I remember ALL TOO WELL from high school and it was no easier tonight than 18 years ago.  There was medley of music from the 60s.  A lesser known (to me, anyway) J.P. Sousa march called Fairest of the Fair.  And a variety of others.

My moment had finally arrived.  As I made my way from the back of the band to the podium, I was given an impromptu introduction.  I took my place behind the conductor’s stand with the baton.  I gave the tempo, gave the down beat, and…. nothing.  I forgot to BRING IT!  Try again.  It worked!  It was such a thrill.  WHAT A RUSH!  You darn well bet ya that I will not fail to bring it tomorrow night.  Just keep the beat alive.

Well… let’s hope I get some friends, WCCT fans, BCB fans, AND FAMILY! there tomorrow night.  But, once again, it is Jubilee week on the square so come early and bring your chair/blanket to sit on!

Ok… so I am a few minutes late posting a 4th of July entry, but I had an absolutely wonderful end of my day. I started out by putting in a fun-filled 10 hour day at work. Somehow for the most part it went by relatively fast especially when we had those few major rushes when I had 4 people in my line with carts and needed to call for reinforcements. Finally, the shift ended and I got to rush home (not before I overheard a few opinionated people loudly complain that we were closed already). Clearly marked on the door that we would indeed be closing at 6PM and it was 6:05 when we stepped out.

I ran home, changed into some other more comfortable clothes and headed to the country home of some other theatre cronies where we congregated, had a cookout, and enjoyed watching the sky light up with some very cool fireworks. I missed our local display last weekend for some strange reason. They usually run them the SUNDAY before the hoilday. This year, they decided to have a two day celebration and had the fireworks on Saturday night. However, I think the display presented tonight was quite exceptional and rivaled some of the best I have seen produced in our local park. I think the only thing missing was some great accompaniment of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with its thundering cannon or John Phillip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, Liberty Bell, Washington Post, or any other grand march  Maybe next year we can have the sound system hooked up.  But the chance to congregate with a large group of friends to celebrate our freedom, a birthday,  and the coming birth of a special guy was such a thrill.