Thank You Tiny Tim for playing a role finding my hidden talent to be used for the glory of God.

I know you have been inundated with fan mail, but perhaps the way in which my family and I became Tiny Tim fans is unusual enough to be interesting and worth recounting. (Judging from the volume of the input on this website, being a Tiny Tim fan is not as unique an experience as I had sometimes been led to believe.

I was in the eighth grade in 1968 when your late husband recorded his debut album, "God Bless Tiny Tim". During that year, our two eighth-grade homerooms, under the direction of our homeroom teachers, presented a stage play based on the "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" show. Various students played the roles of Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Goldie Hawn, and many of the regulars on the show. Mike S., a boy in our class, owned a copy of "God Bless Tiny Tim", and it was assumed that the individual who was to be cast as your late husband would put on a wig and lip-synch the record. Accordingly, Ricky B., another one of my classmates, was given Tiny's part, presumably because he vaguely resembled him. (In the meantime, I had been cast as Pat Paulsen.) One day during a rehearsal I saw a microphone unguarded and, on an impulse, belted out a rendition of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in a tremolo falsetto that was (I was later told) so convincing that students were asking if Tiny Tim were backstage. (The teachers involved had encouraged secrecy as to the content of the play to give it an element of surprise, therefore some students may well have speculated that a celebrity was involved.) Anyway, I was immediately re-cast as Tiny Tim, and they were content to have Ricky play Pat.

In order to learn the lyrics to the two songs I was to sing in the program, I had to borrow Mike's Tiny Tim album and play the songs. Out of curiosity, my family played the entire album and discovered that some of the songs on it were nothing short of beautiful. My mother, a country fan, is particularly fond of "Then I Know That I'd Be Satisfied with Life" as well as "Have You Seen My Little Sue" from "Tiny Tim's Second Album". My late father, a World War II veteran, came to enjoy Tiny's patriotic songs, and my sister is currently re-building and extending (on compact disc) her old vinyl collection of Tiny Tim records.

Well, the show was an overwhelming success and my "debut" was mentioned in the "Junior Hi-Lites" section of our hometown newspaper.

As a result of the experience I have just described, I became interested in music in general. I learned to play the ukulele by reading an instruction book that accompanied an instrument I received as a gift. Later, I learned to play the keyboards by picking out the chords and melodies to songs on the Tiny Tim albums. (By this time, we had acquired our own copies.)

In February of 1974 I made another debut, so-to-speak. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior as a result of the efforts of two of my classmates during my second quarter in college. Since then, I learned to play the guitar and have had opportunities to minister in music at nursing homes, in small churches, and for friends. (My natural voice comes out as kind of a bluesey-tenor.) I consider it a privilege to praise my Savior with a talent that I know comes from Him alone.

I guess what I am trying to say is "thank you" to Tiny Tim, who, though we met only briefly back in the '80s, played a role in my discovering a hidden talent which, I hope and pray, has been and will be used for the glory of God. Although I have not been successful by worldly standards, I hope that, through music and personal witness, I have laid up treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust consume them.

Yours in Christ
Karl N.