Strike up the band!

Friday night, when y'all were out on hot dates or snuggling with your honey (or that's my fantasy), I was driving the kids to evening activities.

Remember Friday? It was a cool evening, with the moon rising in a clear November sky.

The DQ was part of the stage management team for a Stage West production. Mr. C and his pals in the band were going to hang with the big boys and girls on the field at the West football team.

No surprise that I was going to the play.

Football is Greek to me ( except when the Giants are playing and reprise the winter of '08). And as the sun went down it was getting cold, shadows lengthening against the back of the middle school.

Dinner? Not enough time.

The book that has to be read by Wednesday? Why are there deadlines?

Instead I walked over the fields to the track that the middle school and high school teams share. Except for a woman bundled up against the cold, and a hardy middle-aged guy running in shorts, it was empty.

As I walked over, I began to hear the sound of instruments near the high school.

The wind section, chasing a harmony in the twilight. The drums, beginning a persistent growling thump.

The music of the night.

White pants and blue jackets with crossed stripes. Cockaded hats whose feathers moved in the breeze. Cheerleaders already waving their flags and throwing their batons on the field as the stands began to fill.

Remove the mid-Soviet era style buildings and this could have been anytown, anywhere in America, seventy-five years ago.

What can I say? It was a lovely moment of uninvited nostalgia and patriotism -- the best kind.

After pacing the track for a while, lost in thought, I saw the band on the move. Hoping to catch a glimpse of my eighth-grade lad, I chased them down the road that leads to the rear of the stadium, where they were to play.

Using my cellphone, I snapped a few photos for posterity -- and came up with this blurred muddle.

Of course it was impossible to capture the mood, the music, the moment.

I shouldn't have tried -- the fact that it happened at all was a minor miracle, one I'll treasure for a long time.