Another Weird Thing I did as a Kid.

     You probably remember playing the recorder in school. For anyone who doesn't let me tell you about it. 
     The recorder is usually a cheap plastic flute that, when played by a bunch of second graders, sounds like nails on a chalk board. It also comes in wood for those who have more experience in which case it sounds like a regular flute. Think of the flute Hagrid was play in the first Harry Potter movie.

     Well, my class wasn't so good at playing the recorder. As a result we were made to play the same three songs over and over again. Marry had a Little Lamb, Old Grey Goose, and Hot Cross Buns. We never learned anything else, no Yankee Doodle, no Jingle Bells, not even Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. 
     Naturally us second graders got bored, so we started a competition to see who could toot the loudest on the final note. 
     Guess what happened...

     We got the recorder banned from our school! It was hilarious, we now did music on percussion instruments because the teachers couldn't stand that screeching noise from fifty plastic flutes. 

     I tell you that story to tell you this story.
     One summer when I was in junior high school I met some Irish tourists at the swimming hole. My Dad helped them find some Native American souvenirs, I gave them some cookies, and they gave me an Irish tin penny whistle. 
     Now if you think a recorder sounds like a cat fight on helium, you've never heard the ear splitting wonder of the Irish tin whistle. I felt obliged to practice playing it too since it was a gift, and thankfully it came with a CD and a book of what I call cheaters music which shows you the position of your fingers below each note so you don't need to know how to read music. I practiced playing that flute all summer and to help me get a hang of the notes, I got out my old recorder, which compared to the tin whistle, was really easy to play and sounded way better. 
     I eventually learned to play the theme from M*A*S*H, Part of Your World, Only Time, and Wake Me Up When September Ends. I still never learned to read music, I just listened and played until it sounded right. 
     Come fall I went to school to show off my new hobby, and I gotta admit, it got me laughed at a lot in the coming years.
     I was already the weird kid in school. At a time when Brittany Spears was popular and the fashion trend was to wear as little clothing as possible, I was the only one who refused to wear pants or a skirt unless it fit loosely and came down to my ankles. I was already a unicorn-drawing, fart-sounding, oddball, Now I was the only kid in school who still played the recorder too. 

     I lost my recorder while moving but it was fun while it lasted. At least now I don't look back on my teen years and cringe. Being weird rules.