high school

Yesterday I worked a temp job taking tickets at the high school state track event.

It was funny to see millions of high school students, running around and being idiots and coaches in funny hats looking stressed but determined.

Friday I was stationed at the warm-up area and watched how they meticulously warmed-up and stretched. On the other end of the finish line we were told people were puking about every other race from pushing themselves so hard.

And sometimes I'd wonder why they bothered. But then I remembered that these kinds of things are what high school is all about.

I haven't touched my trombone in a little over a year, but if you ask me what my high school career was about, I'll tell you it was winning State three years in a row and playing in an incredible ensemble.

We did the same things. Rehearsing for hours inside and outside of school. Warming up just enough. Panicking about the smoothness of slides and quality of reeds.

And it paid off. We always made incredible music and South has a six time winning streak. They got third last night, which we all knew was bound to happen sometime soon, but each Senior class swore it wouldn't be them. I'm really proud of them though, because although I wasn't there, I have absolutely no doubt that they played high quality music. We needed more color variation to our trophy shelf anyway.

So I guess what I am trying to say is, we can't really make fun of those punky high schoolers because we all know it feels really good to be really, really good at something.