Chapter 6: High School, the Early Years
OK, I think I can remember most of high school. At first there didn't seem to be much different from middle school. Most of my friends went to Collins, my mediocrity and apathy towards band continued, and the classes were still quite easy. But before I realized it, my primary group of friends shifted from those in my classes to people in band. The chief reason for this was that the silly "Pre-AP GT" no longer existed so I had a mostly different set of people in each class. This meant less time with the same people so less time to form friendships. The opposite happened with band. The time commitment for band increased dramatically because of marching. Upwards of two hours of practice after school every day, more on game days, all in the grueling heat. But I guess we found companionship in mutual suffering. A person can't march with the bassoon, it's too cumbersome and expensive. So I was given a tenor sax, and the plan was that I was to learn how to play it, at least enough for the marching music. But that required practice and my thoughts regarding that subject hadn't changed, so I wound up just holding the sax, which is pretty amusing when I think about it. Though it was because of that that I met the group of like-minded people that are still my friends. They were mostly sax players and it was what we identified ourselves with, but there were about four or five, myself included, people who didn't even play sax so it was kind of a misnomer. We hung out often, and still do, watching crappy movies together. Nicolas Cage became our patron saint (praise Him) and we all got along well together. I didn't quit band and honestly enjoyed my first years of high school because of them.