After two weeks the band met again. Turnout proved better this time. Our hotshot piper from (originally) Milwaukee showed up, & there was a new guy, a total novice, I guess, from Green Bay. In one of those amazing coincidences we're sometimes told about, the two Wisconsonians realized they'd met before--not sure when or where, but they're both into historical reenactment.

Early this month we played at the local National Guard Armory before & after a departure ceremony for an infantry company on its way to Iraq via Mississippi. Our state's governor showed up for the occasion. Quoting my journal:

Regrettably I found I wasn’t even as good a piper as I’d thought, though maybe (I hope) no one outside the band noticed. Someone commented that our performance, in context, was like a “call to arms.”

Here, by the way, are the arms of the battalion these soldiers belong to: