Way Back When-sday

It seems that this is the only post that I'm able to be consistent with. I really enjoy looking back at old photos and reminiscing about different stages of my life. A couple of days ago, a high school friend posted a bunch of old pictures on her facebook page. Now, I'm starting to have a love/hate relationship with facebook. At first, I loved it: reconnecting with old friends I never thought I'd hear from again, catching up with people and seeing pictures of their adorable families, reaching across the miles and years and re-establishing old friendships. I even love seeing the old pictures... of other people. But then folks start posting photos of me from my awkward high school years and I start to hyperventilate a little bit. I'm not sure I'm willing to face those memories again. I guess I should be glad nobody's posting pictures of me from junior high... now THOSE would be scary. I'll post one here sometime. Then you'll see just how bad it really was.

But anyway, back to the point. The point is, an old friend posted pictures, among them a few from our Hawaii trip when I was a senior in high school. Our choir went to the ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) Festival which that year happened to be held in Hawaii. How could that not be great, right? Trust me, parts of it were: laying on the beach, enjoying the sunshine, exploring the street markets for trinkets.

But then there were the not-so-great parts: getting my wallet stolen from my hotel room with almost $100 in it, dealing with the high school "I'm going to hang out with these friends instead of those friends" drama, and, worst of all for my naive self, finding out that a WHOLE BUNCH of my choir friends totally did drugs and smoked. I seriously had no idea, that's how clueless I was. It really burst my idealistic bubble. But, I guess it was about time I found out that not everyone had the same high standards as this inexperienced Mormon girl. And I still loved these friends, I just realized we were very different in some ways.

Didn't expect to go off on THAT tangent. So anyway.... here I am, in Hawaii, in my fancy choir dress with my choir director Dan Earl and my mom, who came along as our accompanist. I feel really lucky to have had Mr. Earl as my choir director for three years. He loved his students and loved sharing music with us. He was very tender-hearted and was known to cry when he would introduce meaningful songs to the audience at concerts. I looooooved singing in his choirs. We sang great music that challenged us and made us better musicians.

A few years ago Mr. Earl retired. They (some former students, parents of former students, etc.) decided to have a surprise concert in his honor. All of his former students were invited. We had one day to rehearse old songs we hadn't sung in yeeeears but which came back in an instant. Dozens and dozens of us piled onto the stage and sang for our dear Mr. Earl. It was a very Mr. Holland's Opus moment. Very touching, and one I won't soon forget. This man touched so many lives, and it was an honor to be part of something that honored all his years of dedication and hard work.

This post turned out to be very long!!! But I really do have so many great memories of my high school choir years. We were lucky to have a great music program and a passionate director. I just hope my kids can have such great experiences someday. The End.