What a Night!!

By 5 pm the green in front of the bath house at Ferguson Memorial Park was already filling with people. The program of the evening was not scheduled to start until 7:45. The Swim Team Parents had already set up their fundraiser table of cookies, fudge, and snacks. Lines were forming at the concession stand at the pool for pizza and soda and water. Band members, knowing parking could get interesting were arriving and the sound men and lighting men were getting set up.At 7:45, all sound-checks finished, Kelsey Jefferies, a 13-year old Community Band member in the Percussion Section, played guitar and sang several songs and then turned the stage over to the Dennis McClung Blues Band. What a night of music! They are an excellent group. Promptly at 9 pm the Community Band began the concert with the National Anthem followed immediately by Semper Fidelis by John Phillip Sousa. Among the selections played were the Big Band song String of Pearls, Stairway to Heaven, a medley from Wizard of Oz, the theme from The Simpsons, the salute to our military past and present with The Armed Forces Salute (I actually get to play melody in the Coast Guard section), and the beginning of the fireworks was signaled by the ending bars of Stars and Stripes Forever! The fireworks were the best, 45 minutes of colorful, noisy fireworks to please the fireworks aficionados.