No One's Gonna Rain On Our Parade

I woke up Friday morning and put on a black t-shirt with a big blue neon lowercase letter "a" on the front of it. On the back, the shirt read "High Wattage" and had a light bulb drawn beneath that.  My friends and I had spent the week making this shirt and fifty-seven other similar ones, all with different neon letters on the front, and different nick names on the back.  They were made for our pep rally line up, and together, 58 people strong, we spelled out "Taylor Elmore, you will always be in the senior's hearts." My class agreed to spell this out to honor our late classmate.  It made those of us who knew him feel that in someway he was with us for that first pep rally of senior year. This is one of the many reasons I love my class.

   We screamed and jumped around like children who had consumed far too much sugar. I am quite confident that one of the things I am going to miss most about West Florence is dancing to the traditional band songs.  They become a part of you, and never fail to get us fired up. How they managed to get us back to class amazes me.

   That night my classmates and I headed out to the stadium to tail gate.  It had been raining all afternoon, and we were really hoping it would stop. The girls all had on button-ups and ties, as is tradition for the West Florence seniors at the first football game of the season. We were gathered around, painting the guys chests, (they were going to spell out "One Knight Stand;" our mascot is the Knights) and it continued to rain.  Not only did it continue to rain, it began to pour.  

   We were soaked down to the skin.  But, none of us left.  We went into the game, and claimed the student section as always.  We danced and cheered and prayed for our Knights. We were playing our rivals, the South Florence Bruins, whom we had beaten every year for the past eight years.  This year broke that tradition.  The Bruins beat us 47-7.  So there we were, the boys with paint running all over them, the girls in neck ties and button ups, soaked all the way through, losing miserably to our rivals for the first time in eight years, we all claimed to be miserable, yet, we were all having a blast.  It is a memory I know we will all keep with us for years.

    After the game, several of us went to Waffle House.  I was talking to one of the guys who had painted up for the game, and he said, "Ya know, I hope every game is like that one." I replied "You mean us being annihilated while soaking wet?" He laughed a little and said, "No, I mean I hope we get that crazy and have that much fun at all of the games."  If my school has one thing, it's spirit.  Even though we were losing, we had at least twice as many fans as South Florence.  That is one of the main reasons I love my Knights, and I love my class. Seniors 2010, the perfect ten, that is.