The summer wanes. When I was younger all I could think of was the coming of fall and “back to school” looming ahead. Part of this process was always buying school supplies. Picking out notebooks, pencils, erasers, and folders was exciting, and the smell of these when they were new fascinated me. I don’t think I was as excited by using these tools as much as being fascinated by the tools themselves. This thinking leads to chewing on pencils, pens and erasers and actually putting pen or pencil to brand new paper. It didn’t matter what was applied to the paper, but the act itself was most important. I suppose that learning has to start somewhere. Why not with the tools. This sort of thinking continued off and on until college when I was “freaked out” by the price of all of the large, required books and the tools themselves. Expense always seems to trump the senses.
For my three years of high school, August meant band camp. This was a real adventure in music, marching, and social events like games, and campfires and singing and square dancing. Even meals were social events. And after a week of this kind of discipline, we were all ready for the coming season of football and the half-time shows. But, getting to this point required a lot of work. First – learning the music, second – learning the marching routines, and then – combining the two into playing the music smoothly while marching over rough ground. Not an easy task. But, a week of concentrated work made this possible, and actually seem easy later when during the football season it rained (causing the field to turn to mud), or when it snowed (making the field slippery or the yard lines become invisible), or when a multitude of unforeseen incidents occurred (bringing into play a reservoir of creative thinking). In my case this was all great preparation for a career in various aspects of music and for life in general.
In college August meant wrapping up a summer job and then looking for an apartment in Cincinnati, near to the conservatory of music, with a roommate. Once the fundamentals were once again in place, it was back to a routine of personal practice and study, school concerts and dance jobs, and exams and instrumental boards (playing exams).
August now still leads me into my favorite season of fall with its distinctive colors, and football, with its distinctive sounds and sensory input. And, once it gives way to winter, I spend the rest of the seasons waiting once again for August, the harbinger of fall.