As we were getting ready to go out the other day, I turned to my husband and said, “we’ve known each other since we were 18 years old”.  He looked at me and said, “yep, 43 years”.  It’s hard to imagine that I’ve known him for two thirds of my life.  Sometimes it feels that long ago and sometimes it feels like it just zipped by.  This is why I tend to avoid math – it makes me think too much.

So, when he said the other day that he was getting ready to do his 77^th band camp, I had to do the math.  If each camp were just one week long, that is the equivalent of a year and a half.  I’ve often joked that the reason we’ve lasted so long is because we’ve actually only been together half our married lives.  If he’s been gone for a year and a half just doing band camps, imagine all the rehearsals, football and basketball games, concerts, parades… well, we’ve hardly been together at all!

His argument against this was that I taught a lot of those camps with him, which is true.  For twenty years I traipsed up and down those parking lots and football fields teaching drill or stood outside doing woodwind sectionals, or pretended to be a guard sponsor (I was BAD), just to spend SOME time with him.  Oh sure, I enjoyed some of it, until about 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon in August with the sun beating down on the blacktop and the need to pee had disappeared hours earlier. I was good at teaching drill and marching and it was nice that he trusted me to do it.  But it wasn’t my passion, not like it is his.

You would think that after participating in and teaching marching band for 48 years (I think I have the math right), he would be slowing down a bit, but no.  While I’m trying to function at 7:00 this morning, he comes bounding into our room with a cheery “good morning” as he finishes getting ready for camp.  Wearing one of his 20 pair of khaki shorts (I don’t think I’m exaggerating), and the latest band t-shirt he is set to go.  The enthusiasm hasn’t waned, he keeps learning and trying new things and he loves being with the students.  The consummate teacher, if it’s possible to differentiate within a group that rehearses to look the same, he does it.  

Did I mention he’s writing ten high schools shows on top of what he does for his college gig?  Writing drill is in his blood, and while he can’t get too complicated or difficult in what he writes for a one or two week show at the college level, he can be as much or more creative with his high school groups, especially if they compete.  You see, it’s not just making people move on the beat around the field within phrases, it’s about creating a story with movement and music, taking themes and using shapes that bring the audience into that story.  He studies the purpose of shape and color, how they give meaning to art and music.  Knowing that this was what he wanted to do from a very young age, he has been able to go deep into the subject, a subject some would think is only for entertaining at halftime but is something he considers an artform.  

It’s just after 10:00 p.m.  He left the house around 7:00 a.m. and was probably up closer to 5:30 a.m.  He’s not home yet.  This has been the story of our 43 years together; we met in marching band, we spent summers teaching it together, he left to teach a camp right after we came back from our honeymoon and less than a week after the birth of our first child.  (and yes, I’ll never let him forget that – I’m a woman ; ).  But as I sit alone tonight, the truth is that this has taught me how be alone, to be productive, to be independent, to enjoy the quiet.  Because if he didn’t do this all day every day, I might want to do things with him all the time.  And what marriage could withstand all that being together all the time?  Chances are band camp and marching band have actually saved our marriage!

All kidding aside, I don’t know many people whose passion drives them the way this does him and while it can be maddening, it is also an amazing thing to witness. And for his sake, I hope he adds as many more camps as he wants to in the future.