Christi Chesnut, 17, a senior member of the Oxford High School marching band, is writing a daily journal for The Star’s Web site about the band’s trip to New York for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Christi, who plays the saxophone, will enroll in Auburn in the fall, where she will study veterinary medicine.This is her second journal entry, as told this afternoon to editors at The Star. She filed her journal from one of the Oxford buses as it made its way through Tennessee.
SOMEWHERE IN CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — This morning in school you could tell when we walked in who was going on the trip to New York and who wasn’t because everybody in the band had their comfy pants on. It was crazy.
The teachers went pretty easy on us this morning. I didn’t have any tests, and I didn’t hear of anyone else having a test, either. Personally, I didn’t even bring a pencil to school. Everybody was just wanting to get out of there.
After fourth period we then went to lunch and to the band room there at the football stadium. There was luggage everywhere and parents everywhere! I haven’t seen so many parents in the same place before in my life.
It was chaos loading the buses this morning. On this one bus, we realized there were so many people on it and they wouldn’t all fit. It was just crazy trying to load all these people and all this luggage on this one bus. While we were doing that, several of us were grabbed by reporters who were there wanting to talk to us.
Now we’re passing through downtown Chattanooga, and everyone is watching movies. We’ve got all these televisions, and we’ve got tons and tons and tons of movies. Everybody was prepared.
On my bus there are some people sleeping. There’s a healthy balance of parents and kids, so it’s not like it’s just a bunch of rowdy teens.
No one is complaining yet – but it’s only been two hours.
We were supposed to stop tonight in Roanoke, Va., but I think we’re going to stop somewhere else; he hasn’t told us where yet. All I know is there’s supposed to be a Shoney’s, a McDonald’s and a Cracker Barrel, and we’ll have to pick one of those to eat at. I’ll probably pick the Cracker Barrel, I guess.
