John Hardly -- "so weak, that I am to singing what, say, Joe Lieberman is to oratory." -- LOL, in fact you had me shouting with laughter!

It's funny. Just this morning I said something to Bill about how my parents always said "Rita is artistic, but her sister is the one with the musical talent." It left a nervousness about music, a feeling that I'll-never-be-good-enough, that still gets in my way when I sing in front of strangers.

And what is it about third grade? (Or third grade music teachers?) I couldn't hear differences in pitch, so when the music teacher said to sing "higher" I sang louder. I just could NOT get it. They kept me after class to try to teach me to reach the high notes, I think we were singing "America the Beautiful." This was not bad teaching or criticism. She really wanted to help me understand and find the notes.

Luckily my parents had us take piano lessons and somehow I learned to hear and reproduce pitch, I think the piano playing helped. I won't ever have perfect pitch but I don't make people wince too obviously, either.

I had a big loud Italian voice, too, and was asked not to sing in at least one chorus because (among other things) I was too darned loud. Didn't know how not to sing loudly back then. Now the big voice is an advantage because I'm going to shantey sings in pubs, you have to make some noise to be heard at all.

One thing we all have in common, besides having been criticized or "put down" early in life; we all kept on singing. Good for us.