Pep Rallies never were exciting for me. When we got to junior high suddenly we were faced with this phenomenon. In elementary school herding everyone into the gym was meant for school wide movies or fund raising spiels. Now it was different. Herd everyone into the gym for screaming and somehow building commitment for going to the football game. And I only went to one junior high football game – the 9th grade homecoming game…and I only attended because I was in band. We played the theme to the Muppet Show during halftime…but that’s another story all together.
Pep rallies usually occured before the first football game of the year…and possibly before homecoming. Usually it consisted of the cheerleaders awkwardly doing their halftime show to an unsympathetic crowd. I distinctly remember seeing the halftimers dance to Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation (1814, you know). This past Saturday MTV had a special titled “22 of the Greatest Albums.” Rhythm Nation was on there. And there’s that controversy about 1814. As it turns out R is the 18th letter and N in the 14th letter. Nothing to do with the date.
Then came high school where we’d have to gain membership in the pep club to be able to go to pep rallies. I went to a few. I remember there were a few fights during the rallies. Mostly girls. Catfights. Put anyone in a crowded room long enough and they’ll find something to fight about.

I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade this weekend. Which of course brought back memories of my marching band time. I was in band from 7th -11th grade….marching band for 10th and 11th grade. There was a certain degree of burnout since we did work very hard during the fall season. So its no surprise that many of us did drop out during our Junior and Senior years. My dropout was energized by the fact that many of my friends decided to drop out. I remember coming home and telling my parents that I was dropping out of band. They had been heavily involved in band and must have enjoyed much of the social part of it. So they were mad at me for dropping out.
As a marching band our emphasis was directed toward the contests. These were competition events that only the band parents went to. Whereas when most people think about marching bands, they think of football games and Christmas parades….which members of the band put relatively low emphasis on. We really didn’t care too much for football games and parades, only performing good enough to pass for respectable at these events. Yet when it was time to decide how much to give to school music programs, whether or not a band was in the local Christmas parade was a good measuring stick on whether or not the school board/county commissioner/powers that be granted money to the program.
We had some warped rules in band. Mostly it concerned whenever we’d march back to the stadium after competition. We marched back in line…usually without our instruments OR our uniforms. Here we were in street clothes marching back completely solumn…military faced….with our arms crossed….in a single file line. And whenever someone would try to break the line just trying to get through, we were supposed to yell “Don’t break ranks!” Some event ran right over the people. Talk about class. Looking back on that I think it was pretty dumb. It we had been in some type of military uniform, I could sorta understand it. But we were a high school band….and somehow justifying trampling over people and being downright rude to people.
It’s not that I hated it. I made alot of good friends in band and learned alot about life and organization and doing your part for the whole. I just think that it was particularly overhyped at times.

In 6th grade I was assigned to the classroom out in one of the many portables. Some of the parents of the 2nd graders complained that their kid was in the portable, but I don’t recall there being much uproar about 6th graders in portables. But that is another story altogether.
I digress. I was out in the portable. That being the case it was away from the rest of the school. We usually didn’t get much news from the outside…like the usual gossip that permeates throughout elementary school…especially in the teachers’ lounge.
Kids who arrived early at school were sent to the gym in sorta a holding pattern. Somehow the teachers union had worked into the contracts that said they didn’t need to see the kids until 7:30AM. That’s it. So anywhere from 6:45 to 7:25, we were sent to the gym to wait until school actually started. Not me. I lived approximately 1 mile from the school (maybe less, I could have walked it). So I had my mom drop me off at around 7:15 or so. And I’d go straight to the portable. No gym for me. No crowded gym with kids yelling with nothing to do. Nope. I acted like I was going to the bookstore to buy something, then I headed off to the portable. Usually another girl and I would be the only ones in there. Once our teacher caught on and said “Y’all are way too early. They haven’t let you out of the gym yet.” But nothing ever was said of it. I’d get some peace and quiet to myself without the self conscious act of walking into a crowded gym thinking everyone was staring at me. That was a big deal back then.