Top 10 Thanksgiving Stories? I’ll start.
Dan Barry: THEY deserved New York. Those who have willingly donned the maroon-and-gold uniforms of the Pinson Valley High School marching band, who have lived to the tweets of their director’s whistle, who have played so much upbeat music that they can bring pep to ”Ave Maria.” Yes, these children of Alabama deserved to participate in that glorified commercial known as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
But none deserved New York more than their five sousaphone players, including Andrew Parsons, 16. His lot in band life is to lug around a heavy instrument that looks like a tuba straining to be a boa constrictor. While others frolic among the high notes, he and his four mates boomp-boomp-boomp in the low. Andrew likes that.
Those boomps were an integral part of what won his band its brass ring: selection as one of the nine high school bands in this year’s parade. Hundreds of practices followed, as did car washes, cookie dough sales and other fund-raisers to pay for the 950-mile trip to New York.
Leave a comment