High school pep band

Without any irony or sarcasm I can truthfully say that one of my favorite memories of high school is attending high school football games while playing in the pep band.  Sincerely.


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In most high schools, pep band is Serious Business, requiring many hours of dedicated marching and playing-- and sometimes weeks of band camp.  My high school did no such thing.  It was a just-for-kicks volunteer kind of thing that didn't even count for community service hours for the graduation requirement.  On any given day there would be about 15 of us, and with just enough diversity of instrumentation to sound balanced, more or less.  We sat in the stands and played as loud as we could, which still wasn't loud when considering ambient crowd noise, the sounds of the field, and the wind, but we managed.

Playing outside can be pretty miserable, especially on those cool, crisp New England early afternoons.  Pep band wasn't about the playing so much as it was a chance to watch the game for free, socialize, and make fun of the players and cheerleaders.  Oh-- and cheer!  My favorite one:

The "bra" cheer, to be chanted when your team is playing defense:

Caller: Gimme a "B"!

Rest of us: "B"!

C: Gimme an "R"!

ROU: "R"!

C: Gimme an "A"!

ROU: "A"!

C: What do we do?

ROU: Hold 'em, hold 'em , hold 'em!

Lovely were those pep band days.  I might've played severely out of tune, my fingers might be like frozen sausages, it didn't matter because I was there to have a good time, and a good time was always had.