I'm the only person on my dad's side of the family to have never twirled, cheered, played sports, or won the Beauty Walk at Fayette County High School. This includes my sister because she twirled in junior high before we left the state. My dad played every sport they had and went to more than one state championship. It only takes one look at the walls of my aunt's bbq restaurant to know these things are true, and to understand that Fayette is THE breeding ground for a very special designation of twirler - that of The Crimsonette.
The Crimsonettes are the majorettes for The University of Alabama Million Dollar Band (MDB). Their intense director started out training the girls in Fayette, which secured the link. This town eats and breaths hair spray, sequins, and batons. Most self-respecting businesses display the annual posters of the women - all autographed, of course. And these girls work their tails off. They are not merely the pretty faces of the SEC magazines. They are athletes that spend hours a week outside of football season with coaches to teach them all sorts of stunts with a three-baton minimum. Sadly, you don't get to display these stunts once you become a Crimsonette because Alabama doesn't have a featured twirler - but that's because each of our ladies has to be good enough to be a featured twirler to make the team.
I had the honor of attending the wedding of a former head Crimsonette that I now consider a close friend. During her reception, she and all of the bridesmaids whipped out their batons and performed the routine to the entire University of Alabama fight song without missing a beat and without a single drop - in a restaurant! In their dresses and heels!
Given all this, you can understand how my little town has been rattled by the very young death of a former head Crimsonette that was one of those bridesmaids. A lovely, smiling blonde woman that left the earth at the age of 25. She battled leukemia and then a respiratory infection of the very worst kind. There is something about the losing of a life so beautiful, young, and sparkly that shakes us. Obituary photos aren't supposed to be of sequin-uniformed women wearing the perfect shade of red lipstick while they pose with Big Al. They are supposed to be the most recent church directory photo of grandmothers with standing weekly set-and-curl hair appointments. God keeps telling me that He was being merciful by taking her and that He wants his daughter to rest, and I have peace that this is true even if it goes against our earthly minds.
Along the way, my dad became the unofficial Fayette majorette and Crimsonette photographer. Not because he was a creepy guy on the field, but because we were related to half of them and their parents all asked for pictures. During her senior year of high school, this particular young lady had a fancy dinner at her house for the majorettes. She asked my dad to come take pictures at the dinner, but really she wanted him to come so they could say thank you and give him a gift. Once she was head Crimsonette, she would get the girls together on the field each home game for him to take their weekly group picture, which was copied and distributed to each parent at the MDB tent at the next home game. I am grateful to her for showing him that respect.
I never had the option to be a majorette. The schools in Virginia made fun of bands with twirlers. They labeled them as old fashioned and sexist. Now I understand the real reason they didn't have majorettes was their deficiency of Southern women that were gorgeous, fierce, and confident enough to rise to the challenge.
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