Back when I was in first grade a teacher actually made me sing in public as a punishment.

It all happened because of my dad. We were watching Name That Tune (this was back in the 70's) and during the 'stump the band" segment of the show somebody challenged the band to play a song called Granny's In The Cellar.

The band didn't know the song so the girl from the audience sang the tune and won the prize.

When my dad hear the song he just about went crazy.
It went like this:

Granny's in the cellar,
Gee can't you smell her
Cooking flap-jacks on the dirty stove?
In her eye there is some matter
And it's dripping in the batter
And she whistles as the (snort) runs down her nose.

Now, when the "snort" comes in you do just that: give a good old-fashioned phlegm-gargling snort. The grosser the better.

For days after that my father would start singing Granny's In The Cellar at the drop of a hat. He sang that verse so many times that it lost all of it's effect as comedy and sort of became a household ritual.

Now back then I was going to a Catholic elementary school and our teacher was this evil old nun who hated kids. Things always got pretty boring so one day before class I decided to teach the other kids this cool little song that my dad was singing all of the time.

So Sister Mary Mikofmagniesa walks into class and we're all kicking back singing Granny's In The Cellar and laughing hysterically every time we got around to the snort. We clammed up as soon as the nun came into the room, but the heartless old bat dragged me in front of the class and said that if I liked singing so much I could spend the rest of the day entertaining the class. I was told to stand in front of the class and sing the song over and over again until she told me to stop.

I guess the old fool thought this was supposed to be a punishment of some sort, but I had a ball. I sang Granny's In The Cellar over and over again and went to great lengths to make the snort as effective as I could every time it came around.

After a while I got bored so I switched over to one of the songs my grandfather sang all of the time (this one wasn't exactly politically correct):
(to the tune of Harrigan)

H! A! Double R I!
My cat pissed in your cat's eye!
Proud of all the Irish that is in me,
I can lick a Chinee or a Guinea!
H! A! Double R I G - A - N you see
It's a name that no shame has ever been connected
Harrigan, that's me!

The kids in the class were going nuts by now so I went into some of the other songs my grandfather used to sing/howl as we drove around in his Dodge Dart. Then I'd go back into Granny's In The Cellar again.

When the nun realized that her "punishment" was turning out to be a lot of fun she went and got kids from other classes to come over and watch my antics.

By the time lunch was over every kid on our floor was singing Granny's In The Cellar. The nun walked over, slugged me, told me she was going to call my parents and ended my performance.

When I got home I didn't tell my dad what had happened. I figured when he found out what had happened that it was going to be my ass. That night the phone rang and I heard my dad's side of the conversation.

"Oh yeah, that's a great song isn't it? . . . Oh, you didn't like it? . . .
You made him do WHAT? . . . I could have told you that wouldn't have worked. He loves attention! . . . What am I going to do? That's your problem. I'm paying to send him there so you'll control him."

Pop didn't say anything to me about the call, but he did kick back on the couch with me and sang Granny's In The Cellar with me a few times.

The funny part of this story is that today I'm a professional musician. Whenever my father and I play Granny's In The Cellar pop tells the story about the kung-fu nun and how she was responsible for me growing up to be a performer. . .