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Once upon a time I was a very quiet guy. People had to work to get a peep out of me.
“Hey Larry, how’s it goin’?”
“Uh, hey.”
“You doin’ OK?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cat gotcha tongue?”
“Uh-uh.”

As a preschooler I was one of those tots that hid behind Mama’s skirts. Later in school, I shied away from raising my hand to answer a question from the teacher.
I once attended Vacation Bible School. At the end of the week we held kind of a graduation program with the church filled with adults and other scary people.
I had a part in which I was to portray Timothy — “I am Timothy …” I think I was the only one in my class to memorize my entire speech. And I’m talkin’ three or four sentences.
I recall standing out there in front of what seemed like the whole world. I faithfully repeated all my lines without a glitch.
But nobody beyond the first row heard me. And those on the first row had to lean forward and cup their ears.
By the time I was in college, I tended to sit near the back of classrooms to avoid the lecturer’s glance. All the better if I could position myself behind someone tall and wide.
Part of it was my natural shyness. But also, I feared having my lack of intellect discovered.
All my life I’ve been known as the quiet one. I think it goes back to when I was the third of three brothers (the fourth brother and little sister came later).
Anyway, I vaguely recall innocently saying things during family conversations that struck the funnybones of my older brothers, not to mention my more discreet parents.
For instance, I spent weeks waiting for my fifth birthday on March 2. “How many more days until March 2?” was the question I asked often enough to drive Mama at least partially neurotic.
Then the day came and I was duly rewarded for reaching a year older. We were in the car the next day and I asked what I considered a valid question: “What date will my next birthday be?”
Laugh all you want, but this 5-year-old’s inquiring mind wanted to know.
It was the resulting laughter, I think, that may have silenced me. If I didn’t want to be laughed at, I’d just say nothing.
Or say it very quietly into Mama’s ear. She had a way of reducing her mirth into a respectful titter.
I remain softspoken to this day. But I’ve found myself making noises unbecoming to someone who has surpassed an otherwise dignified threescore and ten.
You see, I’ve become a grunter. My American Century Dictionary defines grunt as “a low guttural sound made by a pig.”
My pig noises are a consequence of growing old and the resultant lack of muscle elasticity.
I grunt when I get into the car. I grunt when I pull my seatbelt around to fasten it. I grunt again when I get out of the car.
Grunting accompanies my attempts to put my socks on. I make pig noises when I pull a T-shirt on over my head, and even more when I struggle to remove it.
I sound like a Neanderthal when I get up from my recliner. Ginny calls from the kitchen, “What did you say?”
“Never mind,” I reply. “The moment has passed.”
Grunting has become a new form of speech for me. I would call it a tongue but the sound comes mainly from the throat.
As much as I wish I could form identifiable sounds from grunting, each grunt sounds exactly like all the others. If you’ve heard one “mmph,” you’ve heard them all.
And that’s a shame. When Ginny hears me grunt, she can’t distinguish from the timbre and pitch of the sound if I’m crawling sleepily out of bed or if I’m displaying annoyance at the box on the top shelf of the closet that won’t readily avail itself of being removed from its resting place.
It’s too bad that now that I can be heard, nobody can understand me.

Larry Penkava is a writer for Randolph Hub. Contact: 336-302-2189, larrypenkava@gmail.com.