..........school's back in session and so is marching band!

Yes, that's right, we're back in school. We had a good summer break (we got out of school on May 24). We had marching band camp July 30 - August 3 from 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM each day, and started regular classes on August 8. I think I'm going to enjoy working with this marching band - they seem to be a nice bunch of kids.

One of my unplesant tasks during the marching band season is lining-off the practice fields. I normally do this on Sunday afternoon after church service. It usually only takes about 45 minutes to do if I can see the lines from the previous lining. I have what we call the "upper field", which is about 900 yards away from the band room and on the other side of the campus. I like working on this field because the grass is thick, it is away from most distractions, and the coaches don't have an automatic watering system up there. The only down side to the upper field is that it is not a full regulation size. I have a full 100 yds length, but the distance from sideline to sideline is not the regulation distance of 160'. I have about 12 marching band steps of 22 1/2 " past the backside hash mark. The lower practice field is 80 yards long and is regulation sideline to sideline width. The problems with this field are that the grass is thinner, it is where the PE classes are sometimes a pain-in-the-neck, and the coaches have an automatic watering system. I don't quite know and understand the love between coaches and their watering systems. All I know is that it has made life hard on me just when I need that field the most. At any rate, I thought that I would go to the lower field to work the band one day during band camp. I instructed the Drum Majors to get the band in "opening set", and I would be there in a few minutes. I went to the field to find the student leaders arguing as to why the formation would not turn-out correct. I soon saw the problem - the field was not laid out square. Now, I'm sure there are some intelligent coaches out there somewhere. The football coaches laid off the field themselves this year (I normally do it for them). They are an interesting lot, and they don't think very far out of their very small frame of mind. This field had absolutely no 90 degree angles anywhere. In fact, the field is a parallelogram. Those idiots marked the sidelines, measured each of the five yard lines, and proceeded to run the line from the 5 yard line on one side to the 10 yard line on the other side. This did not disturb them - they don't need exact dimensions to do their work. I asked them to let the rain and watering system wash the lines away so I could fix it. That would have only taken two weeks. We were on track until this past Friday, when they lined the field again, without correcting anything. These people are nothing short of complete idiots who care about nothing but themselves! To make a long story short, I am going to paint all of the existing lines with green paint, and then start over. I have two cases of green field paint - green you ask? Why do they even make green field paint? The coaches call it "boo boo paint". In other words, when the village idiots screw up on the game field, they cover it with the green. I'm not saying that I'm smarter than our beloved football coaches - the heroes of our community..........yes, I think I am!!! To put everything is perspective; common sense is not so common.