When I was a kid, I sang. I sang a lot, and at the risk of being immodest, I was pretty good at it. In elementary school, I was part of a quartet that our music teacher formed, kind of a barbershop quartet but with two boys and two girls.

From an early age, I was a member of the choir in Dad's church. We didn't present a lot of solos, but when we did, it was frequently me. My favorite solo was "O Holy Night," which is particularly well-suited to the baritone range (although it does get a bit high at times). I wasn't in the school choirs in junior high and high school because I was in the band, and you couldn't do both.

I loved band. My mother played the piano, and my brothers and I each took piano lessons when we were in elementary school. When I started band in junior high, the band director put me on the baritone horn, with the intent of moving me to tuba later if I did well. So that started me down the path of lower-voiced instruments. Through the rest of my public school "career," I played tuba, electric bass (a keyboard instrument), bass viol or double bass, trombone, bass trombone and bass guitar. I love playing all of these instruments.

I was also an actor (I was really artsy-fartsy in my youth, eh?). I was in every play in my high school while I was there, and I also acted in college. My favorite role was Marvin Macy in a college production of "The Ballad of the Sad Café."

All of these activities fell by the wayside once I joined the Navy. I acted in a few plays, I played bass guitar in a band and sang backup for a few songs (if you've never tried to play an instrument and sing at the same time, you have no idea how hard that is). I really miss all of them, and I'm no longer any good at any of them, unfortunately.

But the common thread among all these activities for me was the feeling, the emotion I could pour into them. They were all an emotional release for me, and while I would never think about presuming greatness in any of them, I believe audiences generally enjoyed my performances because of the sheer joy I experienced while performing. In fact, I think one of the best things about our band was that the core of the band, the lead guitarist/lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist/backup vocalist and myself, just had a ball when we were on stage. We were reasonably good, and the fun we were having was simply infectious.

I find now that I really miss that emotional release. I have my doubts about regaining much of whatever singing talent I ever had, but I could probably still do fine with a bass guitar or one of the brass instruments if I put in enough practice. I believe I could definitely get back into acting, given the opportunity. I don't think circumstances would allow me to get back into any of these, though, and that realization saddens me a bit. I loved them all. They all fed me emotionally in a way that nothing else can.

But they're just some more items in the list of things that I used to do, but can't any more. And that's just a fact of life.