Ankeny

The past two weekends the John F. Kennedy High School Marching band has gone to Ankeny and Des Moines and our last stop is at the indoor marching classic at our home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I have my complaints about the indoor marching band classic but those complaints will be saved until and undetermined date. Our show at West Des Moines Valley, as I addressed earlier was not the best show that we have had and I was definately not satisfied by the results of our competition there.
This past weekend we went to Ankeny and everyone took this show seriously and I didn't say a word until our band director spoke. We knew that we had done a great job and the feeling that we would score quite high was definately a mutual one amoungst me and my fellow marching band friends. The show from my perspective was flawless and it was definately the best time that we had ever done it, except for a few flags that had trouble with the wind but that is quite unavoidable since the wind was blowing quite strong. I was just absolutely speechless at the end of the show and I don't think I took another breath until my band director spoke. Of course she had only good things to say and I was very pleased.
When it came down to that last moment where we all were waiting for our placing I had a bad feeling, that feeling started to ease as more and more places were announced. Suddenly they anounced Cedar Rapids... my heart jumped and i'm thingking no we got fourth this year, crap no! no! no! ... John F. Kennedy High School and everyones heart sank. We worked so hard and got so little from it.
All our band director said was, "We worked so hard..." and the feeling was the same through out the entire group.