Piercing, Shrill Tone
#1. I was in the fifth grade, age 10, was learning to play the Trombone and thought it to be neat to play Taps, outside, at night.I had been doing it for weeks, maybe months, when in the middle of my playing I heard a shrill, high pitched sound with a slight warble, a fast warble, that scared the s*#! out of me. I was absolutely petrified, and couldn't even move.
After what seemed like minutes, which was probably only a few seconds, I forced my body to move, first with one foot, then the other, to open the house door and once inside, made a streak to the living room where my sister and mother were located.
They knew from the white complexion and big eyes that I was not joking. At the time, they did not truly believe that what I was telling them was a fact, or just a little boy hearing noises. They suggested that one of our 3 dogs was howling at my Trombone escapades. Even at the age of 10 years I'd heard many a dog howl, That noise wasn't even close in sound to a dog's howl. The sheer intensity, evenness and consistency of that sound was not a dog.
After a short time, my mother and sister persuaded me to go back outside with them. Even to this day, I know they think they knew better than the kid.
However, they do realize and admit that I was scared to the point of looking like a ghost. That little incident was enough to curtail my evening Taps playing.
P.S.
We were living about 5 miles north of Terrebonne, OR, a rural farming community in central Oregon. The time was about 8:00 p.m. It was sometime in October and Dad was gone from home, elk hunting.