Westwood High, Our Light

We played pep band music in band class today, and it was a joyful experience. Seeing Cameron get all excited about conducting this music on his birthday and hearing thirty tunes whose tempos all read "steady rock" and the like made me so happy, it's no wonder I was dancing like an idiot up in the front. I thought of all the good times I had at Westwood and how we lived for football games. The competitions were cool, but the games, full of excitement and cheering and cold metal bleachers and bathroom parties, were something special. It's something you have to experience, being rained on by crickets as you're crazily playing the fight song up an octave and signing the national anthem on the field in your colorguard uniform and seeing thousands of people who came to see you rather than the football team, to understand why it was so important. It was the band jackets and bus rides home and rogue saxophones playing "Seven Nation Army" that I loved, not the football or the drill team or shameful record our school had. We have different priorities and ideas here, and that's okay, but I sure do miss me some good old Texas high school football games.