I can remember how nervous and excited I’d feel each time the drum cadence kicked off, and The Pride of the Red, White, and Blue marched into the stadium. With my clarinet, or as drum major, each Friday night was a night spent making memories to last a lifetime.  I pictured my life – and somehow I never made it further than a different house in that same town, a child who would one day play in the same band, and Friday nights filled with football games as the sound of Star and Stripes Forever heralded another touchdown, and Hey Baby caused the fans to sway and sing in the stands.  That stadium in Pace, in some ways, still represents my childhood dreams.

I watched The Pride of the Red, White, and Blue file in tonight.  I watched them from the home stands, while they took the visitors’ side.  I waited with anticipation for a drum cadence to kick off, and for my child to enter the stadium, trumpet in hand – not as a Patriot, instead as a Tate Aggie.  I held my flathead JD, juggled my phone, and tried to get a video of him doing what he loves.  I wasn’t super successful.  ha!  He entered the stadium, headed into the stands, and all I could think was – It’s a great night to be an Aggie.

You see, fans filled up the stands early, the student section held up their painted signs, and people took to their feet to see one of our very own achieve his lifelong dream to play football.  Markus was born with cerebral palsy, and tonight my hometown of Pace, and the school of my heart, Tate, came to an agreement to allow him to play a play so that he could letter in football his Senior year.  I am sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the stadium.  As the band struck up The Horse, and played our fight song for Markus’ touchdown, I could think of no two better schools to come together to make this happen.  I watched both sides of the field stand up and cheer.  I watched the Pace football players clap for Markus.  I watched two great supportive communities come together in remembering that it is so much more than football.

I am thankful to have grown up in the now not so little town.  I needed then what Pace provided.  I needed a place to grow and dream.  I needed those Friday nights that seem so far away sometimes, and yet can be brought back with the smell of fresh-cut grass, a slight chill in the air, or a harvest moon hanging low on a breezy Fall night.

But I am so very thankful that life took me a little ways over the river.

JD came home tonight and we talked a bit about the game.  Usually we talk about the show, and how the football team played – but tonight our conversation was mostly around that very first play of the game.  JD says: Mama, it really is great to be a Tate Aggie.

I am sure that one day when he looks back on his high school days, he will think about some of his outstanding moments.  I’m sure he’ll remember marching into the stadium.  I’m sure he’ll remember playing “All I Do is Win” after we beat Niceville at Niceville in the regional final last year.  I’m sure he’ll remember the Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade, and after this December – the amazing opportunity he had to play at the 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.  But I know in my heart of hearts, long after he marches out of Pete Gindl stadium for the last time, long after that familiar drum cadence becomes a memory, when his childhood dreams are realized and he cheers on his own children as they do what they love – he will remember this night.  He will remember the breeze in the air, the roar of the crowd, and just how it felt to play the fight song when it meant the most.

He will remember the night the football stadium became a field of dreams.  And those dreams were realized.

It’s great to be a Tate Aggie.

It’s a beautiful life.