Honor Band Experience

The Honor Band during afternoon rehearsal

Last September I was asked to be the Guest Conductor for a Northern California Honor Band (a group of students who audition and are selected because of the high performance abilities). That invitation may in itself be an odd occurrence - but what made it even more remarkable is that it came from the Association of Christian Schools for Northern California (from the Bay Area north, and Hawaii).

Anyway, yesterday was the event. I started working with 60 students at 9:30 am and went to 1:00, then we had a lunch break. Starting again at 2:00 pm, we went till 5:00 when we had 2 hours for dinner. At 7:00 we played the concert. There was an Honor Orchestra, a Festival Band (those who couldn't make the Honor group) and the finale was the Honor Band I worked with.

It was really a great experience for me. the students were very good (behavior as well as playing ability). I think a lot of that has to do what is expected of kids who go to private schools, but don't get me started on that. The kids worked their tails off, we had fun together, and they did a good job at the concert. The venue was nice too. The Vacaville Performing Arts Center, which is centrally located between the Bay Area and Sacramento.

I was responsible for choosing the music we played and I'll try to post the recordings in the next couple of days: Colonel Bogey March, Amazing Grace, and Exaltation (a typically exciting 'band' tune).

The Concert Hall at The Vacaville Performing Arts Center

David shared this with me from a Forum he went to at BYU-I last week. I thought it was a really good story. Enjoy.

"A number of years ago my brother called me and as we visited, I asked him how his day had been . He said he had had better days. He then asked me how my day was and I told him that I no longer had bad days; of course he wanted an explanation.

"That day some unusual things happened. I was a veterinarian, at work trying to keep pace with a busy schedule. I had just finished my morning surgeries and hurried to exam room one to see my first patient. In the exam room there was a scruffy white and black dog sitting on the exam table. I had never seen such an emaciated mess in all my life. He had one red swollen eye and what looked to be a large dirt clod on his head. His coat was dirty and unkempt and he was very gaunt.

"Having no idea what was going on, and learning only that the dogs name was Cholo, I asked, 'What are we doing for Cholo today?' For a moment no one answered, there appeared to be a whole family there, grandparents a mother and father and several kids, and they all looked at the floor. They were Hispanic and as is often the case an older woman touched a young girl on the shoulder and she began to speak. 'We had Cholo put to sleep a week ago.' With that flat statement my gut tightened slightly, I could envision that we had put Cholo to sleep a week ago and that somehow we had not done a very good job, and he had come back to life, you know that can be considered as one of the ultimate failures. That is a hard decision for people to make and if it had gone poorly, I could imagine that they were not happy, so tentatively, I asked, 'Did we put him to sleep?' They smiled and the little girl said 'no'. Now relieved but still confused I prompted them to continue. This time the mother in broken English began to explain. 'A week ago Cholo ran into the road and was hit by a car, it didn’t kill him but he was badly hurt.' 'His eyeball was popped out and his skull was fractured, we could see his brain!' 'We knew he could not live and so my husband’s friend took him into the desert and put him to sleep.' I asked, 'How did he put him to sleep?' She answered that he had shot him five times. I laughed and commented, 'He must not have been a very good shot.' 'Oh no', came the reply, 'Cholo was dead, and we buried him in a shallow grave.'

"This was becoming more bizarre by the moment. Still perplexed, I ask, 'How did he get home.' She said, 'An hour ago the phone rang and my husband’s boss said your dog is out here and he doesn’t look very good, you better come and get him. We tried to explain that it could not be our dog that he had been dead for a week, but he said he was sure it was our dog and that we had better come down. It was Cholo and so here we are.' Still not sure what they wanted, I ask, 'What do you want us to do, put him to sleep?' The mother became excited and began to shake her head, 'No, no, Cholo is a good dog, after all of this, he came home to us. We want you to fix him.'

"Cholo had had a bad day. He set a new standard for bad days. He had been hit by a car, had his skull fractured, his eyeball popped out of its socket. He had been taken out into the desert away from his family and shot five times. Then to end this bad day, he was buried alive. So with this as our standard, I would submit that I have never had a bad day and neither have most of you."

Have a good day!