My mother thought that I would be a great musician. By the time I was two years old, I was already playing on the linoleum. Only two years later, I was playing the radio. Some of my family were musicians and played in bands that people actually listened to.

I played the flutophone in grade school. I was a marvelous flutophone player. I was a regular Yo Yo Ma of the flutophone. I envisioned myself playing the flutophone at Carnegie Hall one day. By the time I was in the seventh grade, the local school’s band instructor was making regular visits to my home. In those days, gifted flutophone players were in demand. The problem was that there was no flutophone in the high school band and my father was not real excited about forking out a good chunk of change for a clarinet or a French horn.

I was in choir for a couple of days. They needed another tall guy to balance out the photo of the choir in the school yearbook. I tried singing with the group. I hit high C once and neutered the high school’s team mascot. My music career came to an early end.

Oh, I enjoyed listening to music. As a teenager I loved the loud bands that teenagers are required to enjoy. The kind of group that plays its music so loud that when the band broke up, it took a full two weeks for its sound to fade away. Most of the music wasn’t as bad as it sounded. My father felt most of the music was long on hair and short on talent and made him want to clap – his hands over his ears. Dad felt that an unsung hero is a guy who knows he can’t sing and doesn’t. I would sing along with the radio or the record. For those of you who are too young to know what a record was, it was like an over-sized CD.

The shower was another place that I would warble like a canary. Everyone sounds good in the shower. Outside the shower, I couldn’t carry a tune in a five-gallon pail. I sing everything in the key of off. I try to make up for being a bad singer by being loud. Most of my singing was done in another location. We did not have an indoor toilet. My father did not believe in them. He thought they were just a passing fad that would never catch on. He said that with an outhouse, you still had a place to go if your house burned down. It was difficult to argue with logic like that.

I bring up the outhouse, because as a small boy, that is where I did much of my real singing – robust singing, that is. The trouble with having an outhouse is that nature doesn’t always call at a convenient time. Nature calls at many an inopportune time – like long after dark. In such cases, I would walk out back of the house. It was a scary walk for a young fellow. The bur oak trees and their disorderly limbs made for interesting and frightening silhouettes. If the moon was bright, creepy shadows danced across the path. I would pause at the entrance to that little house and listen for sounds. There were haunts, boogeties and things that go bump in the night that were more than willing to make some scary noises. I would listen by the door and hear not a peep. Feeling safe, I would enter the outhouse. I would seat myself on one of the seats. I wouldn’t close the door entirely, because I might have to make a quick escape. Having to bother with opening the door might cost me a step – a step that could make the difference between life and death. As soon as I would get situated, the noises would begin. Clever devils, the evil creatures of the darkness. My mother always told me to sing my blues away. I would start to sing. I hoped the songs would chase the bad guys away. I’d sing, “Stand Up For Jesus” until I realized that it was not an appropriate song for someone in my position to be singing – if you know what I mean. I moved on to “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.” It was the perfect song. No boogetie ever entered the hallowed halls of our outhouse. It must have been the singing that kept them away.

Singing has saved my life many a time. Sing – it could save yours, too.

Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.