You know it's never going to happen. I'm never going to make it all the way into September one year, and not totally geek out on football and marching bands. I might be too busy or sick to really focus on games, but I'm never going to completely ignore the season. It's like imagining that hordes of middle class women will suddenly stop craving pumpkin spice in autumn. You might want that fad to fade, but it isn't going to happen in your lifetime, dear friend. At least I waited until it was actually September to gush about it, kind of like how Starbucks changed their menus at midnight last night for the official arrival of pumpkin spice season.
This morning I looked longingly at an old gold colored tee shirt with officially licensed CU artwork on it, and wondered whether I could get away with something so casual at my sales meeting. And then I remembered that I worked biking distance away from CSU, against whom my Buffaloes play tomorrow evening, and decided that I should be more discreet. It was especially prudent, since I drive a car with CU specialty plates on it, and I park in a public garage when I am in Old Town. It's not worth risking fate, especially since the week that CU and CSU last met for basketball, someone in that same garage parked so close to my car that I had to climb into it on the passenger side, and it was during that month that my back hurt so bad I was hospitalized for it. My back is a little stiff and sore today, so I didn't want a repeat of trying to contort over the gear shift and center console of a compact car. No one gave me any grief about my clothing choices or car tag, so either my personal idea of intra-state rivalry is blown out of proportion, or I just flew under the radar as intended.
I arrived on the Pearl Street Mall several minutes ahead of my daughter, who met me to watch the Buffalo Stampede, the parade that is held the night before all home games. I had told her to meet in front of the courthouse, where the band starts out playing their upcoming show tunes and all of the fight songs. But then I walked past my favorite tiny jewelry shop, and decided that since I was there with bare ears and too much time on my hands, I needed to stop in. I waited and waited for her to arrive and give me an opinion on the different colors of stones that caught my eye, but eventually I made my selection without her. It seemed apropos to walk out of there with oval citrine drop earrings. Black and gold gear is the uniform of the day.
As the band let loose with their wall of sound by the courthouse, the instruments echoed and blended, and the aural experience at any point along the block-long arc of musicians was as complete as if we were in a rehearsal room with them. But as I played back the videos I uploaded to Facebook, I realized how differently the cell microphone picked up the sound. I had been standing in front of the western portion of the trumpet section (the other half was on the far side, separated by trombones and percussion). My recordings were very trumpet heavy, with a little buzz from the saxes farther west. I know all the way down the arc were clarinets and piccolos, and they might as well have been standing in Nederland for all that I could hear them on the audio.
As we followed the parade down the mall, watching some of the players toss mini footballs from Tebo's antique fire engine, I had a strange thought dance through my head. If ever (and ever is so many years in the future that it is unlikely to exist) I decide to marry again, I should find someone who is cool with me having the CU drum line come perform for my processional. I don't know what it is about a drum cadence, but it is the best sound in the whole world. Better than angels singing. Better than the sound of kittens meowing. The best, bar none.
At the second stop along the parade route, my daughter and I realized that the band had yet to play the Tuba Cheer. She started calling out, "Give the people what they want! Tuba!" We didn't hear it until the third and final stop, and as soon as it started, I danced back to where she stood against a storefront, and we goofed around, behaving exactly as silly as any active member of the band. For all that I tried to be discreet this morning, the gloves were off tonight. I wonder what fellow parade watchers thought of the weird old lady in black and the chick with the green hair, dancing with abandon. Hopefully they thought, "Go CU!"
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