This past week I had the pleasure of attending a band concert in which my daughter, Sierra, and her trumpet, B Sharp, took part. The concert was held in the theater of Rapid City’s civic center, where a packed house of about 2,000 friends and family listened to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders honk, bang, squeak, and toot for about two hours.

Starting with the 5th graders each grade performed four songs, and then shuffled off the stage while the next grade shuffled on. The shuffling took longer than the actual concert, but was equally entertaining.

The grades that weren’t performing on stage were seated in the front few rows either awaiting their chance to shuffle and play or recovering from the effort of sitting up straight and paying attention for four songs while on stage.

It was a constant sea of movement in those first few rows. From where I was seated it looked like a bunch of bobble heads hoped up on double espressos. Heads bobbling to the music, heads bobbling to the left and right chatting with bobbling head friends. Very few heads weren’t taking part in this bobblapalooza.

Those heads not partaking were probably attached to the kids whose parents had given strict orders against bobbling of any nature. “If I see so much as one bobble out of you mister you’ll be grounded for a week.” “But mom all the other kids will be bobbling.” “Just because all the other kids get to enjoy themselves you think you have to too?”

When I wasn’t being distracted by the bobblefest I noticed how entertaining the drum section was for each grade. If you have spent any time around kids of this age group you know that the girls and boys are not on the same schedule for physical maturity. We males eventually catch up in the physical department but we are doggedly resilient in maintaining our mental immaturity.

Mental status aside, within these age groups you have quite a mix of characters and characteristics. You have a lot of girls that are physically nearing womanhood and a lot of boys that are physically runts. Clumsy runts….clumsy runts with moppy hair, big teeth, baggy pants, and the manners of a drunken sailor.

All of this physical and mental mayhem is beautifully displayed and choreographed within the drum section. The drum sections were all composed of a 5'8'' young lady making an attempt at elegance surrounded by several of the above mentioned runts. After each song the runts would bounce around like the seven stooges while the 5'8'' princess would point and bark orders.

It was a grand showing by Snow White and the seven runts. “Sneezy where’s the cymbals? Get them from Doc you need the cymbals for this song. Happy get the xylophone out of your pants Sleepy needs it. Where’s the triangle? Dopey that’s not a triangle that’s a tuba. Bashful help Dopey find the triangle. Which one of you runts took my drum stick? Grumpy I’ll break one of your arms off and use that if you don’t give it back.”

The bobble heads, stooges, runts, and princesses all put on a fine concert. The music wasn’t bad either.