Pomp and Circumstance

By Edward Elgar.

Ah, the standard graduation song. Starting in 1998, I had begun playing it for every high school graduation I had to go to. Since I was in band, that meant every one. And since Monsignor Bonner was the boys' school and I was in their Jazz Band and Archbishop Prendergast was the girls' school and I was in their orchestra, I had double duty for the schools.

Pomp and Circumstance is not a bad song, considering. It's a nice march and it sounds like what it's called. It sounds less nice when you have to play it again and again and again and again, year after year after year.

This memory comes at the bitter irony. The one thing I looked forward to was forcing someone to play it ad nauseum. So, one fateful night of 2002 in May, it was time for me to finally graduate. I was happy to do so, hoping to never see some people again and unfortunately not seeing some of them again too. As the time drew near the excitement was building.

And that's when the rain started. Downpour. Bad. Torrential, even. There wasn't really any lightning, but it was enough to get us worried about a cancellation. After about half an hour the rain had died, taking with it a large chunk of the audience, and the band.

We did not take a lap around the stadium, we just started the ceremony, without the ceremonial march. We didn't have our first speaker and instead our only speaker was ... Christina Cody was her name? I don't recall. What I do recall was the horrendous speech she gave. It involved an opening that got no response that she had banked on. It then involved saying that September 11th really helped the school become stronger. She said other things, but we had stopped listening to her.

So ... yeah. Not much to change about this one, other than building a weather control device first.