The whole point of marching band is to put on a spectacular show and make it look like you're not trying very hard. You march around in different formations with a funny feather hat on your head trying to remember music notes and which way to turn next. Or at least that was what it looked like to me. My father played clarinet in high school. Every football season he would get out old tapes of his marching band and make the whole family watch them. I, being an cheerleader, didn't think much of these feathered headed geeks. They always yelled about the athletes that they were, out on the field in the middle of August for hours at a time. Ah, band camp. Ten hours a day for two weeks of pain, sweat, and yelling section leaders. Before I reached high school, I made fun of this horrid schedule with my cheerleading friends. How could anyone put themselves through that? How could anyone go that long without wearing any make-up? Well the summer of freshmen year I was forced to find out.

My parents, more that anything, wanted to see me in that horrid uniform. I had been playing clarinet as long as I had been cheerleading, since the fourth grade. I made them a deal. I would march in the fall if they allowed me to cheer in the winter. Thankfully, they agreed. I ended up making JV cheerleading even thought I was only a freshmen. I was very pleased. My parents, on the other hand, were much more impressed with the fact that I made third chair in Symphonic Band, the second highest band out of the three. I was the highest of the freshmen. Concert band had not been that bad. I really did enjoy playing, it was just that I hated giving up cheerleading to do marching band of all things.

Frost High School had only been open for three years. Everything in the school was spectacular. It seemed like all 3,000 students had something to show for themselves. State football, boys track, baseball, and softball champions last year, regional girls tracks, soccer, and tennis last year, a Superior choir and theatre arts program, and 309 honor students with a 3.7 GPA or higher. There were clubs for everything imaginable - debate, cooking, Latin dance, ping-pong. You name it. The school had made a name for itself in a very short period of time. The colors of gold and black spread throughout the county proudly. Everything was doing well. Everything, except the marching band.

Well freshmen year I marched and I played in concert band and I tried out for districts and I participated in Solo and Ensemble. I always learned my part and even challenged from time to time. I did everything that was expected of me. In fact, I even ended up lettering. But as I walked down the hallways on Friday afternoons in my cheerleading uniform, you would never guess that I would be spending the night in a shako and Dinkles playing stand tunes. My friends never brought up the fact that I was in the band and most people didn't even know I was ever in it to begin with. I didn't hang out in the band room in the morning, I didn't stay after the games for the parties at the school, I didn't go to the movie or bowling events the boosters put together, and I didn't walk into the homecoming dance in step with my friends.

I thought I was making the right choice. I thought that dumping the geeks to hang out the perfect blondes and their strong, football playing boyfriends would make me happy. But as it got closer and closer to spring, the time for fall sport try-outs, the more I doubted the loyalty of my musically challenged friends.

In the spring of that year I tried out for cheerleading and a concert band. I was the youngest girl to ever make the Varsity cheerleading squad. I was also fourth chair in Wind Symphony, still the highest of my class. The first chair, senior Andrew Murray, was the drum major. A typical tall, dark, and handsome, Mr. I-Know-Everything-Don't-Mess-With-Me drum major. His brown haired, straight-A, striking smiling girlfriend Lily Jackson, also a senior, was second chair and section leader for marching band. The third chair was a junior and the other clarinet section leader, Ryan Palmer. Ryan looked more like a pro soccer player with his skinny, fast looking body and strong leg muscles. He was smart too. He took a lot of AP classes with an astonishing 4.1 GPA to go with it. The sparkle in his eyes, however, was lost on the marching band field behind his gruff attitude and unmerciful words to anyone who was out of step. Lily's gentle touch was needed to round out the feeling of the section.

It had always been a pretty big band. We gained about 20 members every year. It was expected that we would march about 150 winds with about 15 color guard members. However, we never met that goal. The freshmen interest in marching band exceeded everyone's wildest dreams. We ended up with 170 winds, 20 pit and drumline members, and 30 color guard members for a grand total of 220 marching band members. We were the second biggest marching band in the county following closely behind George Washington High School with 230 members. The amount of members was scary. But it wasn't nearly as scary as our piece. It wasn't the normal movie themed show that we had done in past years. No one had ever heard of it.

All summer the band geeks thought of the new show. Questions of what would make in the grade 6 show everyone was talking about, how hard the music would be, and would it be the awarding winning show everyone had always dreamed of. As I spent the summer with the cheerleaders, I must admit that I too was wondering the same thing. I was also wondering how in the world I was going to survive another marching season, especially with Ryan Palmer as section leader.

As I sat tanning at the pool, (not that it really matter because I would be browned nicely at band camp complete with sock tans and all) I was just another underclassmen dismissing my fears of the upcoming school year for the summer. I had no idea that a few miles down the road, the marching band staff had already settled on a name for the show, Paris Sketches: A Discovery of Color. I had no idea that they had already written drill, picked out color guard costumes, planned movie nights, signed us up for competitions, and dry cleaned the uniforms. More importantly, I, Allison McAlister, had no idea the summer of sophomore year would change my life.

Forever.