Snow is up to the bumper of my car and is reaching my knees. I’m supposed to be participating in a concert at UMD today, Feb. 23. But the snowdrifts say different. Mom said that I could shovel the driveway, but it’s like 50 ft long so no thanks. We do have a tractor, but my stepdad, Wayne, is the only one who does the snowblowing with it. He’s at work, so I’ll just let everyone know that I can’t go. The other kids I was driving found new rides. Mrs. Eichers, the orchestra director, knows. It’s kinda disappointing with how much work that everyone put in that some of us can’t make it. 

Hold on, mom’s on the phone with Wayne. She might be able to drive the tractor and snow blow the driveway so my brother and I can make it out of this freezing snow globe. My mom’s the best. She says we have to shovel out the cars so she doesn’t have to get too close. That’s fine with me, I’m already putting on 80 layers of snow gear and heading outside. Of course my little brother took the bigger shovel so I have the little blue one. I obviously have to work ten times faster than him because I could never let him do better than me. That’s just a sibling give-in. 

My older brother cleans off the cars with a brush, while us other two put in the hard work of clearing the snow. When my mom gets the snowplow up and running, she has to drive between two of our cars. Dowsing me and the Corolla in icy flakes, this had my little brother rolling on the floor laughing. When all of the cars and the surrounding snow is clear I head inside to get ready.

I have to get ready, grab my bass, and pray for my life that the drier gets done in time. By the time I’m heading out the door my mom has pretty much all of the snow cleared off. The snow is still coming down and I’m carrying a 25 lbs instrument that’s two times my size, while trying not to land flat on my butt. But, focusing on the positive, I still get to go to the concert. 

My tank is about an eighth full, so gas before anything else. Once my tank is full and my fingers are numb from frostbite, I’m finally on my way to UMD. The snow is still coming down but it’s leveled out a bit. Driving to UMD wasn’t the worst part though, it was 100% the parking. I’ve never struggled so much parking at a college, granted I’ve only been to UMD and UWS. But still, it was really confusing. I was approximately 30 minutes early, I spent about 25 of those minutes just trying to figure out where I was supposed to park. 

Luckily I made it on time, obviously almost tripping in the snow. But, we’re ignoring that bit. Once I was inside and settled, the fun part started. The bass section was moved around a lot to fit everyone. There were seven of us. Which is quite a lot for instruments that stand a foot taller than me. For the rehearsal we played three pieces, the third one was a piece that you got if you went to the extra rehearsal times. I didn’t go. But, Mr. Carl let me try and play it with them, I obviously did immaculate. Didn’t mess up one bit. But the piece was a lot of fun to try. We rehearsed for a while before the other Superior orchestra students, Denfeld orchestra students, and East high schoolers all went into another room so that UMD could finish rehearsing. 

We sat in the room for a while, and I took pictures for my friends. A quartet from Duluth East was playing. It was a lot of fun to get to be a part of and see from an inside perspective. We played three songs for the concert and then packed up. I got trapped in a sea of college students and instruments so it took forever to get out from the back of the stage. But, once I was out the trek through snow and freezing weather would begin again.