It's OK. I'm with the band.

Today during a random e-mail I remembered I was once a band dork. And I thought to myself, "Self, I bet people would like to know your viewpoint of the band dork experience." So without further ado, I will give you the facts, straight up:

Fact: I joined the Middletown HS North marching band in 1991.
Fact: I was in the color guard (meaning, I spun flags around)
Fact: I wore a heavy, ill-fitting band uniform that I carried around in a blue garment bag like a badge of honor.
Fact: I, like the other color guard members, had to french braid my hair and tuck the bottom under with bobby pins before we attached a huge corsage-looking flower arrangement thing to the backs of our heads, all as part of the uniform.
Fact: I attended band camp.
Fact: I suffered a color-guard-related injury.
Fact: I opted not to return to color guard duties once I got wind of the "hideous new uniforms" they were going to switch to the next year. (Also, a crush on a band dork had died down by that point.)

So that's the basics. In truth, being in the school marching band was fun. I make no pretenses of being hip, cool, with-it or bad-ass. I am just a little geek at the end of the day. So deciding to try out for color guard was a no-brainer and I certainly wasn't worried about not being "cool" all the sudden. Besides, my friends were doin' it, and we had other friends that were instrument-playing band dorks, and we could go to all the football games with free transportation this way... so in the summer of '91 Karen and I tried out. And we made the cut.

It was extremely satisfying to be given a long metal shaft... um, flag pole, yeah, flag pole!... with a shiny flag attached and being told you could swing it all over the goddamn place. I remember practicing my flag spins in the backyard and getting quite good at it. At band camp, they gave us plots of the halftime show we were going to perform (that year it was the award winning "Phantom of the Opera," mighty hot stuff) and we spent several days and weeks walking through our places on the field and how we were supposed to move on the beats.

We even had a "Phantom" and a "Christine" (the dame that the Phantom stalks mercilessly) that ran around amongst the band and flagits during the half time show out on the field. It was supposed to add something to the show. I sure hope it did. I never saw them, really. I was too busy trying not to hurt anyone with my large metal shaft.

Here's what you need to have in order to be a "flagit":
* Be able to count to 4, and 8.
* Be able to "mark time" and walk in line with everyone else
* Good hand-eye coordination
* Smile
* An attitude that everything in the Disney store at the mall is "so cute"
* Be willing and ready to kill a man

I made a lot of friends among the flagits. We laughed, we cried, we froze to death out in the bleachers. Seriously, I think that quiet girl, the one with the teeth, what-was-her-name, is still underneath the bleachers dead at Piscataway high school.

Best of all, we got to take our sweet little halftime show to Giants stadium for a band competition. Which, suffice to say, we won. There were even celebratory windbreakers proclaiming us the "CMBC Champions 1991" in the school colors of black and orange. I only just gave mine away to Goodwill back in January. (I think I always thought a day would come where I'd feel a certain chill in the air, and I'd think, "Hmm, it's cold, but not cold enough for a jacket, yet it's too cold for just a light sweater, and there is a chance of drizzling rain... wait, I know! Where's that CMBC Champions 1991 windbreaker! THAT'S what I need!") Because we won the Cadet Marching Band Cooperative championship, we were invited to perform a halftime show at a Giants game. And on the day we did our show, who was standing on the sidelines giving some commentary during the half-time show... none other than OJ Simpson himself (pre-murders). I can now brag to my grandchildren (dogs) that I once was only about 10 feet away from OJ Simpson (pre-murders).

But, like all carefree playthings of youth, I had to put the flags aside and concentrate on other pursuits, come winter. My crush on a boy in the band had waned, so there was no need to infiltrate the secret marching society any longer. Besides, we heard that the following year's show was going to be to the music of "Beauty and the Beast" and we'd be forced to give up the traditional uniforms for one that included blue shiny leotards (I DO NOT wear leotards) and yellow bows in our hair, and we knew the flagits were not in our future for 1992-93.

Plus, there was the final crushing blow, so to speak. It was winter, 1991. Pep rally. Which had been moved inside to the "old gym" due to inclimate weather. During the pep rally, the band played a song and we were to do our flag routine in straight lines, due to space constraints of the old gym (which was very old). So there we are, performing our routine in a hot, crowded gym, face to face with the bored faces of the entire school, when at a key moment in the routine, Christine Thomas brought her flag pole down right on top of my skull, causing me to drop my flag and look around, confused. Half the gym burst out laughing (the other half weren't watching anyway, they were too busy cutting LSD tabs and writing notes) at my misfortune. And at that moment, I decided I didn't need this humiliation anymore. I wanted to be cutting LSD tabs, too. So that was the end for ole' Lisa.

Senior year was all about the Women's Chorale, but that's a story for another day.