As a freshman band student, my first experience with West Florida High School was the band room. At first glance, it’s not pretty. It’s cluttered, smells strange, and it has a really sketchy bathroom. It’s repulsive at first glance.
It remains repulsive to this day.
It really isn’t much. It has a closet, the band director’s office, and two open storage areas around the air conditioning unit. Along the walls it has cabinets that smell like Bandos (our marching shoes), which is by no means a pleasant smell. It also has a water fountain and a horrible bathroom, but nobody uses those. The bathroom is only to be used by the truly desperate, and the fountain if you want Typhoid Fever. The floor is covered in a scratchy blue carpet, discolored by age. It was a horrible decision for a band room; the brass’s spit remains in the carpet until it is deep cleaned.
And yet, I love it.
It’s an unsaid thing that the students in West Florida’s band flock there when available. Before school, during breaks, and after school. As a freshman in band, your first experience with high school begins in the band room. Rookies meet section leaders and learn all there is for the future marching season, and you spend hours practicing and circling back to the band room for one reason or another. It develops an outwardly feeling, one that’s beyond school and beyond home, yet somewhere in the middle too.
You won’t find that feeling anywhere else.
You can have as many classes as you want, but band class will always feel different. Not only do you immediately have a common interest with the people around you, but you spend so much time with them that you know them like no one outside of band ever would. Involuntarily or not, they become your family. The band students have a subculture that’s one of the strangest things to witness and be a part of, and it all begins the moment you step foot in the band room for the first time. Nothing ever remains hidden in band either. Not your break ups, not your high school drama, nothing. Somehow, we all know what’s going on with the other even if you’ve barely talked, and it’s probably because band absorbs your social life like a sponge. It should be unsettling and creepy, but that’s just how band is.
The band room is where it all the shenanigans occur.
In the West Florida band room, we have all sorts of stories. Some funny, some sad, but all memorable. One time, our saxophone section leader managed to get himself locked in the storage areas after school, and nobody spared him any mercy. It was posted on many social media accounts, and he was teased endlessly for it. We seem to have a lot of trouble with doors, because at one point all our cymbal players were locked in the band room closet. We had to remove the glass and they had to climb through the window, and everybody snickers when they think about it. The drumline is made of strange kids, and in our band, they have a weird obsession with hide and seek. Our battery captain was found in a cabinet 5 feet in the air, with maybe a 2 x 2 space to sit in. We made fun of him for that until he graduated, and though no one mentions it now we all think about it.
Sometimes, the band room feels more like home than your actual home. In a chaotic way, of course.
On the days where we have a football game, students usually don’t go anywhere. They lurk around the band room like creeps and go around doing stupid things if they aren’t in a corner on their phone. There’s the braiding area, typically in the front of the band room, which usually involves a lot of crying out because of tight braids, and there’s the area where people play extremely aggressive games of Uno. When it gets to be 5:15, a mad scramble occurs to gather everything people need for the football game. It’s a flurry of red and black, not to mention yelling. I’ve seen some people walk in, take in the scene, and leave as quickly as possible. On the way back from the stadium, students are tired and worn, and seeing the band room gives you a sense of relief because now you can finally take off that hot and uncomfortable uniform. Sometimes people leave as soon as possible, but others stick around, hanging in the weirdness that is a room in a school building hours after school has ended.
The band room is the last thing you see when you leave high school.
Once you commit yourself as a band kid, your social life disappears. Being in band is a commitment, and that involves spending many long hours in the band room or practice field rehearsing. It’s not uncommon to hear band students wandering in the school halls saying, “I’m sorry, I have band” instead of hanging out with non-band students. The version with band kids typically goes, “Dude, we have a football game, but want to go grab Whataburger after?” and that’s that. It goes on for four years, if everything works out. There’s always a big speech at the end of the marching season for the seniors, and though they act all tough and above the underclassman about it, you can tell they’re going to miss it. When your senior 7th period band exam is over, you walk out of the band room for the last time.
The seniors always look back.
This band room will not be around for next year because West Florida High School has relocated. In four days, I will walk out of the band room for the last time. I’m not ready for it, and I firmly hold that we are all leaving that band room too early. The new band room isn’t like the old. It won’t replace the old memories, it won’t be a cluttered smelly mess, and there will certainly be no bathroom that contains angry cockroaches. It’s supposed to be a lot better than the old one.
I’ll miss the old band room anyway.
English Composition I - Multimedia Project 