Musical Inspiration

At the beginning of the evening I wondered, "What was I thinking?" How did I think that Mike and I taking FIVE girls to a symphonic band concert would be fun? Then I remembered that fun never really entered the equation in the decision to go. We received a notice about the concert and since Laura plays percussion we thought she'd enjoy it. Then we decided to invite her best friend Kirsti since she plays percussion also. So of course we had to allow Alison to invite a friend and ended up with two more, Abbey and Maggie. So I patted us on the back for being such cool parents to let our kids invite their friends and expose all of them to a little culture. They are all good girls and Mike only had to use his "teacher voice" a few times. I reminded them of what behavior was expected of them once we got there, and they all agreed. Then we crashed a wedding...

The concert was at Riverside Military Academy in a part of Gainesville I am unfamiliar with. We drove down a street of beautiful stately homes, and when we came to a large building with cars filling the parking lot and the sides of the street we thought we had found it. We parked and went into a beautiful spacious, light-filled lobby and followed the other "concert goers" down the hall. As we approached what I thought was the auditorium I noticed the other patrons were well dressed, extremely well dressed, as in beautiful shimmery ball gowns, designer suits and tuxedos. We were dressed more in keeping with a high school band concert - me in khakis and a sweater, Mike in jeans and a polo, Laura and Kirsti dressed in boys clothes (another topic for another time), Alison and Abbey in denim capris and Maggie in her shorts paired with Ugg boots. "Oh no," I thought, "Why didn't we know it was more formal?" As we stood in line I noticed a table that looked suspiciously like a wedding gift table, beautifully decorated with pastel tulle, and a table alongside with a guest book. Wait a minute! This is not the concert...this is a wedding reception! No wonder people are talking behind their cocktail glasses and glancing sideways at us. Are they wondering if we are the black sheep of the groom's family or if maybe the bride forgot to tell about her hillbilly cousins? We laugh and say, "Oops, wrong party!" and head back out. Too bad we didn't get to sample the buffet first.

On down the road to the real Riverside Military Academy. It is an impressive campus, sparkling clean and regal, all red brick with striking architecture. Clean-cut, uniformed cadets greet us at each doorway as we buy our tickets and find a row of seats that will accomodate all seven of us. Mike and I decide to flank the ends; zone defense is our only option when we are outnumbered. Overall it went well. I only had to tell four of the five girls to get their feet off the seats. I only had to shush them half a dozen times. I used the "pssst...pass it on" method when the offender was four seats away from me. They quickly learned that the eyes in the back of my head also worked laterally. The music was wonderful. There were several guest conductors, a clarinet soloist and a rousing, pounding percussion section that really did sound as if the walls were tumbling down in their rendition of "Jericho." Towards the intermission I noticed that the two youngest girls were getting fidgety but they controlled it well...perhaps because they were the two sitting closest to me. We let them off the hook and decided at intermission to quit while we were ahead and leave. It was late and I was tired from my constant vigil, plus we could beat the traffic out. As they ran, whooped and hollered their way to the parking lot we knew we had made the right decision. We dropped our guests off feeling satisfied that they all had a good time and that for at least two of them it was their first concert. Yeah, we are cool parents. I hope when our kids look back on their childhood they'll remember times like these.