I’m not sure exactly when it was, but I remember thinking that my singing voice sounded pretty good in the shower. Undoubtedly the acoustics played a large part, but I felt there was something there. So sometime later, when I was in 8th grade, I told my mom I needed a ride to school one evening. When she asked why, I informed her that I would be performing in the talent show. “Well, what’s your talent?” she asked, somewhat alarmed. I told her I would be singing. As my mom relayed this story to me many years later, she described how she and my dad sat at the very back of the auditorium, hunkered down in their seats as if that would protect them from the impending embarrassment, not knowing what on earth to expect because they had never heard me sing. I performed “One Tin Soldier” a capella and won the talent show, leaving my mother in tears. My parents subsequently conspired to neither encourage nor dissuade any burgeoning interest I might have in music or the performing arts, because I had told them since 5th grade that I wanted to be a medical doctor, and that sounded quite fine to them. I did fulfill that professional aspiration, but I always found a way to keep music in my life on some level, from performing in high school musicals, the “Doc Opera” in medical school, some solo acoustic gigs after completing professional training, and several bands (“The Retractors” and “Doctors, Lawyers and Politicians”). I didn’t learn how to play the guitar until I was a senior in college, and I must say that “Beginning Guitar” was the best college course I have ever taken. I started writing music at some point, and in 2004 made a CD “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” under the name “William Beckett MD.” My extraordinarily busy medical/surgical professional life reached its zenith a while ago, and now I’ve decided to direct my energy into my music, if for no other reason than to create something, and because it brings me joy. And it’s better than just singing in the shower.