As the Oklahoma summer sun continues to boil and bake our hottest of days away, when I was walking in it recently—not heel to toe, mind you—every skin-searing beam took me back to the summer of ’93 and the overly-sweaty time I spent preparing to be a member of the somewhat illustrious Northwest Classen High School Marching Band.
Having just finished two consecutive summer school tours of duty—my parents liked for me to be ahead of everyone else apparently—August was generally my time to relax, which included working at the library and mowing lawns while I still could. But, this year, I was told that to be in the Northwest Classen band you had to get in on an intensive marching band boot camp, one that started at about eight or nine in the morning and going until question mark, throughout the hottest month of the year, August.