If one is considered to be a professional once they are paid for their services, then I made my "professional debut" at age 11 when I began touring through Connecticut with a troupe of Irish dancers. No, I didn't dance (and don't ask me). My job was to give the dancers a break while I sang a set of Irish songs and later in the program a set of Broadway tunes. God, can you imagine an eleven year old singing "Climb Every Mountain" or "You'll Never Walk Alone" along with several other inappropriate selections? How obnoxious I must have been! I continued performing for close to thirty years until I felt that public school teaching, along with the lack of consistent practicing (if practice doesn't make "perfect" it certainly makes "better"), was beginning to take a toll on the reliability of my voice. What I could easily do in my 20s and 30s was becoming more difficult and I knew that I couldn't do both well much longer. It just seemed that when I was in the mood to practice I didn't have the time and when I had the time I wasn't in the mood. The decision to stop singing came in the middle of a recital which was going quite well. I had peaked and it was only a matter of time, in my opinion, that my voice would begin to decline. Why not just end with this recital while I'm on top? With the exception of a wedding commitment I had a couple weeks later, I cleared my calendar of future engagements and "turned off the pipes" for good. Shown below is a scene from my junior high school musical in 1967 at Our Lady of Victory School in West Haven. I have no memory of the name of the show or any of the music but I'll never forget my character's name: Herr Sforzando . . . an eccentric opera singer.
