following the highly successful 1998 campaign, there was much optimism at the first 1999 rehearsal. the most bizarre part about that weekend was seeing myself in all of the first time auditionees. i was a rookie no longer- what a strange and wonderful feeling! we worked through warmup excercises and chorales on friday night, and cadillac of the skies and a parade song on saturday morning of the camp. saturday evening all the people who were members of the 1998 corps got cleaned up, and bussed on over to the banquet. the banquet was lovely, the awards great, but i was not prepared for the ageout ceremony. i still had five years of eligibility,and i was crying my eyes out. one of the realities of drum corps is that once someone ages out, there is a chance that you may never see them ever again.such is life.

rehearsal began again the next morning, and we plowed through 90 seconds of music vaguely titled 'big apple- part one ending'. it was cool music, but certainly much different than stonehenge. george played the big apple for us over the speakers at the school. we all agreed that it was different, and that things were going to be a little unusual this year.