Back At It

I realize that all two of you that read this blog have probably been saying to yourself, "Wow, now that Andy's at college I bet all kinds of crazy stuff is happening to him. I really wish I could read about it!" Well, fear not my friends, because I think it's about time I started making that dream come true.

It's pretty hard to remember all of the crazy things that have happened to me since I've arrived here, but basically I've: endured a week of hellish band camp, started classes with a bang, then subsequently realized I suck at physics more than I thought, met a lot of interesting new people, figured out that people are still pretty immature, sucked it up some more at physics, and almost died in some fireworks. That about sums it up so far. I really think that the last item deserves a little further explanation, though.

At this past Saturday's football extravaganza vs. Florida, somebody decided it would be cool to have fireworks going off while the team came out of the tunnel. That's all well and good for most of the 87,000+ people in the stadium, because everybody loves fireworks, right? Well, it totally sucked for me, because I just happen to be in the marching band, and I just happen to have a pregame spot right on top of where they decided to put the fireworks. Somebody came up to me while I was playing and said, "Oh, these are cold fireworks, don't worry about a thing." So, obviously, I pretty much started freaking out.

Now, I've had some interesting experiences with fireworks before, namely drunken friends shooting roman candles at me and each other, as well as said friends throwing packages of 500 bottle rockets into a campfire. However, the difference is that in those instances I was able to move out of the way. When you're doing pregame, you're pretty much out of luck.

I really thought that these contraptions of death a foot in front of me were just going to shoot off some mortar-shells, and that it would be over very quickly. Unfortunately, it turns out that they were the kind of fireworks that spray sparks continually. The sparks weren't exactly "cold", in fact I would describe them as quite warm. I'm pretty sure that I remember my trombone slide glowing while I was playing. The slide, by the way, was quite charred and had to be sent off for repair, if that tells you anything about the situation.

One of my fellow trombone players, who was standing a foot behind me, said he couldn't even see me inside the burning cauldron of doom. I had visions of my life passing before my eyes; all the important stuff I've done like eating 13 waffles in one sitting. I was ready to give it all up for the band. I always sort of thought that I might die on a football field in a band uniform, but I had been reasonably sure it would come at the hands of a majorette with one of those terrifying fire-batons. There was one thing I refused to do, however. That is, of course, miss notes. I played every damn note of War Eagle, twice through, while I was on fire. Because I'm definitely not about to get replaced by an alternate...