On the 9th day of the 2 weeks before winter break, my band director gave to me...

Nine flutes a-dancing!
Eight Brame analogies,
Seven saxes swinging,
Six cool band trips,
Five golden means,
Four pep band games,
Three French horns,
A two-headed turtle,
And a piccolo in the key of C.

Just when did our normally mild-mannered flutes become the Dancing Flutes? Well, it started back in the early part of this decade, when a bunch of flute players decided to dance along to pep music in the stands. At some point, they convinced me to let them dance on the field. I'm not sure exactly which year it began, but I do remember one routine that involved sword fighting with their instruments and another that included the pom pass-off. This year, we only had three flutes in the section, and it was a bit much to ask them to dance in front of the band as a trio. So we decided to bring it to an end. Thus, another tradition fades.

But that's actually okay. Traditions don't last forever. Take the Sycamore Pumpkin Festival. Sometime in the 1980s or late 70s, the marching band began competing in a parade contest in Sycamore, Illinois. The trophies that we won always had a grinning pumpkin head on top. Some years, we won our division as well as several categories like best drum major or best winds. One year we forgot to bring all of our drum sticks and beaters and had to go around to other bands to beg for their cast-offs. Of course, instead of this being a valuable lesson to our forgetful drummers, they won the outstanding percussion section award. Go figure.

Anyway, the festival was the source of all kinds of crazy traditions: Edu the inflatable pumpkin, the "We hate clowns" chant, the 50-piece Chicken McNugget challenge, the retelling of the 40 mph/40 degree monsoon story, etc., etc. But the parade competition eventually passed into the hands of people who didn't know much about marching bands, and the contest deteriorated quickly. When we stopped going, it had pretty much fallen apart. For a few years, band students were very upset, but we began new traditions. Maybe none quite so colorful, but Sycamore had a good run, just like "The Funky Warrior" and the "Where's Waldo" pep band shirts. In the same manner we have retired the Dancing Flutes, destined to become an obscure blog entry of their own in the year 2016.