This one time, at band camp...

I thought I wrote about this already, but I didn't see it. Pardon me if I missed it.

I took up the drums at school in 3rd or 4th grade. When I got to high school, I joined the marching band. I carried the biggest bass drum, because I was the biggest bass drummer. High school band was a rough adjustment for me, but most of my friends were in the band too, so we stuck together and that made it a little easier.

The first year we had band camp at the school, and the 3 years after that we went to summer camps in Pennsylvania. It was the usual teenage hormone knives sticking out of your leg roaming the grounds at 3am setting deodorant on fire littering bug juice gambling vandalism band camp experience. However, no one I knew did anything untoward with a flute.

The first couple of band camps for me were fine, but the last one before my senior year was problematic. I had developed some sort of pain in my side (I have forgotten which one) whenever I carried the bass drum, so much so that I had to play the drum from the sidelines. I think it may have also happened a few times in my junior year, because I remember being in my uniform and watching the halftime show from the stands. I went to a gastroenterologist and they did a bunch of tests, but they found nothing wrong. Still, the pain persisted and I stayed on the sidelines for awhile. I think it did finally go away that year and I rejoined the halftime show in the field, but I never did figure out what was wrong with me.

I have never had a recurrence of this pain since then, but I haven't had anything heavy strapped to myself for long periods of time either (save for my ample belly). I have come to the conclusion that it was psychosomatic. I thought maybe it was nerves, but I was also in a rock band at the time and had no problem singing and playing in front of people. It also could have been the fact that my girlfriend at the time was playing on the sidelines, and I was jealous then. Or it could have just been me vying for attention, I was 17 at the time after all. I think that I have grown out of the attention thing though, at this point in my life I would rather be anonymous to the general public. Hmm, maybe that's due to that pain I had back then. Whatever it is or was, I don't worry about it anymore, but it was a good topic to get through one more day of nablopomo.