Confessions of a Fake Flutist

I don’t remember, as a child, ever really thinking about what it would be like to be an adult in terms of where I would live or what I would do. I do remember, however, worrying about what instrument I would play in the school band. I had two sisters, one eleven years older and the other four years older, who both played saxophone. As a matter of fact, there being seven years difference in their ages, they both played the same saxophone.

When I entered the sixth grade and was old enough to play in the starter band, I knew two things. First of all, I had to play in the band because both of them had done so. Second, I had to find a way to be unique in doing exactly what they had done, and so I needed a different instrument. This resolve was strengthened by the fact that my sister Patti was still using the “family saxophone.”

As long as I was being different, I decided to stretch my uniqueness as far as it would go. No one in either the starter or the regular band had ever played a flute. It was exotic and not very heavy to carry. I would play a flute – or rather, I would attempt to play a flute.

I faked it for two years, blowing energetically into the little hole as we sat in the band loft at games or marched along behind the regular band, practicing for parades or football games. I never really developed much of a tone, and my memory of which note was which was limited. It was easy, though, to carry that little case, about as large as a pencil box, the two blocks to the auditorium where band practice occurred.

My band instructor could not afford to be picky. There were only 200 students in the entire school system – grade school and high school combined – so every warm body available was required to flesh out the physical body of the band. If a few were miming, so be it. So long as they could stay in step for the marching band and didn’t play any really loud false notes, who would ever know?

When my sister left for college, she left the sax, and when I headed out for my first band practice as a high school freshman, I left that dreaded flute behind and took the saxophone in hand to continue the family tradition. I was not a whole lot better at it, but found something held between the lips and teeth was much easier than something held sideways and blown across. Although the sax was heavier, it was held in a far more sustainable position than the flute, which had been an exercise in arm isometrics as I held it aloft.

I dropped the saxophone as soon as I graduated high school. It was handed on to the next generation of my family, and its mouthpiece, at least, met its demise when it snapped in two as my niece tried to grip it with the fourth pair of teeth in three decades. With a new mouthpiece, it survived four more years – hopefully this time with someone who had more talent than I. I know not where it ended up. Probably in some secondhand store or donated to some child who couldn’t afford an instrument. I hope it wound up with some talented individual who could restore its pride in itself.

Now that I have been an adult for more decades than I like to admit, I have conquered most of adulthood’s demands and attempted only one additional instrument, the guitar. Having played only solo or in duet with a college friend who tried to mold me into Joan Baez but failed, I learned about seven notes and adapted a succession of seventies songs to fit into those seven notes. I played for sing-alongs with the kids I counseled at summer camp and for little neighbors around the world who came to my house on Saturday mornings to sing silly songs.

I still have that guitar today. I haven’t played it for years and harbor no illusions about my prowess. It remains as a big, cumbersome, hard-to-store reminder that I can choose my own failures as surely as my own successes.

I am an adult like other adults – growing more childish year by year – but I have learned at least one thing: never again will I try to be different just to be different. The Far Side has shown that this is not something one needs to aim for. We all grow odd enough simply by following the path of nature, thereby furnishing humor for all the generations that follow us.