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  • Writer's pictureCatherine

The Pit and the Pipe

Throughout high school I was proud to be a band nerd. I joined the marching band at the beginning of my freshman year, and it became my life. Those of you who were part of a high school marching band know all about this. Homework in between rehearsals, Friday nights and Saturdays taken up with football games and competitions, and unconsciously marking time while sitting in geometry class.


Dad fully embraced this new life by rolling up his sleeves and becoming a band dad.


This new role didn't just include attending those football games and band competitions and sitting in the stands and cheering us on. It involved sweat and hard work while transporting timpani and xylophones from the rehearsal room to the Ryder moving truck, unloading everything at the competition site and reversing the process when it was all over, often starting at 5 AM and ending at 11 PM. But Dad never complained and seemed to relish the time spent with other band parents and the kids who informed me my dad was "cool" with his French accent and pipe.


So when the band took a trip to Manhattan Beach for a day of fun in the sun, Dad was there with the rest of the parents. Barbecuing, swimming, game-playing, and general high school antics commenced quickly. Then a bunch of the boys decided to dig a sand pit... because why not? Ever the engineer, Dad couldn't pass this opportunity up and starting helping them. I don't think the boys anticipated the depth (literally) of his commitment to this endeavor. They started digging. And digging. And they kept going. Soon, the bottom was too deep to bail out any more sand. But Dad was fully committed and jumped right in to continue the digging, not realizing what a challenge it would be to get out again.


I snapped this rather blurry picture of him in the pit which ended up being deeper than his height of six feet. It's not a great photo, but it shows off his huge smile which resulted from completing something so silly and mundane. He was just that "cool."


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