i live kinda close to norman high, so in the late summer and fall i get to hear the marching band start practice early, early in the morning. and it’s not the least bit unpleasant. it reminds me of home and of high school, of old friends and the dew on the grass on the football field. chilly october/november evenings, sitting in the stands, watching the purple and white fly across the field. i close my eyes and hope that i never forget what it was like to be seventeen. no matter how very Janis Ian* the situation may have seemed to me at the time, my last two years of high school were the best.
*
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Oklahoma girl through-and-through. Writer, aspiring domestic goddess and totalitarian dictator. Taking on the world one carb-induced coma at a time. Founder of GodlyGals, a ministry for women established in 2002. Co-host of Picture Shows & Petticoats. 
*sigh* You stirred in me my own memories….
Late August days hold special memories for me. I too can close my eyes, smell summer burning off, the hot asphalt, the dry grass, as we crunch over the practice field simultaneously wishing this would never end and wrap up all at the same time. The chilly autumn evenings in wool uniforms with stupid plumes atop our heads that flutter in the breeze. Sitting in the stands cheering on the Blue and Gold, and the adrenaline rush you get as you step on the field to perform for a few hundred people that seems like a million. Ahh, what I would give some days to go back, relive the days of my youth, and really live the experience over again. School starts on Tuesday. And we’re big on Football in Lyons. This is going to take me back, and I’m ready.
my dad used to be the director of that band.