So, after lunch at Ed Debevics, we headed on to Shedd Aquarium to view the fishies! Check out some of these colors and cool species. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE aquatic life???
And the chaperones on display:
We were so tired! By this point, I think we’d been up pretty much 30 hours straight!
Thank goodness for the Sleep Number Bed in the hotel!!
Next, day 2 in Chicago – The Sears Tower, Magnificent Mile and Gino’s Pizza.
Over Spring Break, we took the Wind Ensemble to the Bands of America (now Music for All) National Concert Band Festival. This is not your ordinary, run of the mill band festival. In order to go, you must submit a tape of your ensemble playing concert literature and be selected. It was quite the honor to be selected and then, to perform on the Clowes Hall stage was magnificent. I have SO many pictures from the trip, which consisted of sightseeing in Chicago then the music portion in Indianapolis, that I’ll post the things that would make public sense.
On the plane, waiting to finish boarding and take off:
Arriving at the Chicago O’Hare airport:
It’s quite a neat airport.
“Mom, we got here okay!”:
I’m glad we’re here, too!:
It’s not time to sleep, yet!!
From the airport to The Windy City:
Fred gets goofy and Kristina enjoys the show.
Almost there!!!
Time for instructions from Brian, the boss:
Time for lunch at Ed Debevics. If you’ve never eaten here, be ready for some entertaining, yet talk backative waitstaff. After not having slept in 36 hours, some of the kids weren’t impressed, though. But we’re excited!!
Other than purposefully annoying waitstaff, Ed Debevics is also known for the World’s Smallest Sundae:
Obviously, before & after!
They teach you all sorts of things there, like how to talk back, how to read the trip rules and how to dance to YMCA (or as the one waitress called it, “Why Are We Here?”)!
After lunch, we loaded back on the bus and headed to the Shed Aquarium.
Living in suburbia, USA, there are lots of things that we take for granted. Like grocery stores and gas stations. Lots of people live in downtown Chicago and granted, they don’t need gas stations like we do, how do they shop for food?? Here’s how:
Did you know there was still sheets of ice on the water on Lake Michigan??
So, that was half of the first day on this trip. Next, the creatures of the Shed Aquarium!
Tears are such a healing release of emotion. Sometimes, I get so stressed out that all that can help calm me down is a good cry. Other times, I’m so excited about something that I can’t help but cry. Today, there was quite a mix of emotion and so many reasons to cry. Today was Katie’s funeral.
She really was a bright and beatiful young lady. There wasn’t much that was going to get her down for any extended time. She wasn’t afraid to face the issues and she wasn’t just about to sit around pondering how to pitty herself once she figured out some problem she may have been having. She went to work to find an answer to that problem. This is why I absolutely loved Katie Ewing. I see so many people of so many ages sit around finding problem after problem and never doing anything about them. It’s almost as if they want to have the problems. Maybe that’s the way they define life, somewhere in their psyche. Not Katie. When she was diagnosed, she had no problems with going to chemo…unless she was going to miss a game. She made them work around football season – she was a drum major and had those responsibilities to the band. 😉 Once she found out the treatments were not working as well as planned to shrink the cancer, she decided (and without much back and forth about it) that amputation was going to have to be the choice she was going with. She had stuff to do and she had learned that this was going to be the option that would give her more choices in life later. When the post surgical chemo and radiation were done, she was right back in school. We had UIL Concert & Sightreading contest and she had classes to go to.
And this all continues. One thing after another. And she didn’t make these decisions with any haste, either. They were all well educated and thought through decisions she made. All this between the ages of 17-18!
She would be 20 this coming June. It’s amazing what one person can accomplish and how one person can grow in under 20 years of her life. As the minister said, it really is a tribute to her parents and the others that influenced her life.
So, the tears today were sad – because we don’t have Katie in the world with us anymore. And the tears were happy – because we were able to come together as her community and celebrate what a wonderful person she was. We also all knew that all the pain and frustration of years of this disease is now over. There were tears for that as well.
Katie, you’re more special than words can say. It’s obvious how you’ll be missed. Thank you for being in our lives and showing us that there always is a way and it’s easier to find the way than to find an excuse. Love you, mean it!
Peace is a state of harmony, absent open hostility. This term is applied to describe a cessation of or lapse in violent international conflict; in this international context, peace is the opposite of war. Peace can also describe a relationship between any parties characterized by respect, justice, and goodwill.
More generally, peace can pertain to an individual relative to her or his environment, as peaceful can describe calm, serenity, and silence. This latter understanding of peace can also pertain to an individual’s sense of himself or herself, as to be “at peace” with one’s self would indicate the same serenity, calm, and equilibrium within oneself.
Pacem is the latin word for peace and if you GoodSearch it, you’ll find there are numerous people and groups who have chosen to use the word to describe what they do or what they are about. I could say that probably the most common use of the word pacem is in the musical title Dona Nobis Pacem.
I have had the honor to conduct a piece that was written by Robert Spittal recently for wind band called simply, Pacem. In my thoughts, it tells a story. It starts out with a trumpet then French horn solos – children playing innocently. From there, more brass are added to the melody and we maybe see these children grow up. As they grow, they see lots of happiness and sadness; and have whirlwind lives. Even in the middle, we find the clarinet solo asking a question, maybe something like, “Will we ever see peace in our lives?”. In the end, they come back together to share all the adventures of their lives and sit together in peace. There is just so much raw emotion built into this piece of music that’s it difficult to put it all into words. If you just sit and listen and allow the music to engulf you for the time, you’ll find a moment of peace within yourself. The more I listen to it, the more emotions I find built into it. An amazingly powerful piece of music!
This recording is not our band playing it at National Concert Band Festival but they were just as good as the group on this recording.
In a world that is so filled with anger and violence, I hope we all take the time to find our inner peace.
My coworker sent this out to local campuses that knew Katie today. I know some of you remember my blogging about Katie as she went through her initial surgery and were always so wonderful about keeping her in your prayers.
Dear colleagues:
Many of you will remember a 2005 alumni of Stony Point named Katie Ewing – a very sweet girl, clarinetist and drum major of the Tiger Band. Her senior year she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in her knee and the day after UIL Marching Contest where she played the beautiful opening clarinet solo for “Rhapsody In Blue,” she lost her leg to the disease. Over the past two years, Katie has battled the cancer as it appeared all around her body. She was in and out of M. D. Anderson in Houston a variety of times. She came to visit me a couple of months ago (as she did regularly) and though she looked great and seemed in good spirits, she informed me that the cancer had now appeared in her lungs and she was going to have to return to Houston for a pretty drastic round of chemo & radiation. She was also engaged to be married. Upon returning to Houston, the doctors were unable to do anything due to complications from her already weak body. Returning to Austin, her parents were hoping she could just make it to her 21st birthday.
From what I understand, she got progressively worse and this past week was admitted to Brackenridge hospital. She had to be placed on a breathing apparatus and the goal was to make her as comfortable as possible.
Katie died peacefully last night, Sunday, March 25, 2007, in Brackenridge Hospital.
Katie will always be remembered as a vibrant young lady – dedicated, mature and responsible. She was well-liked and respected by her teachers and peers and was a role model for all who knew her. What I will remember most is that she was always cheerful and optimistic – through everything.
God bless you, Katie.
I will email again with information about her memorial service as soon as I receive it.
Brian Sedatole, Director
Stony Point High School Band
1801 Bowman
Round Rock, TX 78664
brian_sedatole@roundrockisd.org
512-428-7184/fax: 512-428-7846
“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.” -Beethoven
But we’re excited!!
Benford's Musings 
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