Blind Bat Matt, referred to as Matt in this Autobiography, was born in the early 1960s in Indiana. His Father, who had been a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during the Korean war, was working as a mechanical engineer. When Matt was born, his parents and siblings all doted over him. His Mother loved Hymn-singing and played an electric organ. She loved recorded music and dancing as well. Henry Mancini was one of his Mother's favorite composers. When Matt was a baby, he picked up on Mancini's rhythm right away and during his first year of life, the song "Baby Elephant Walk" became his favorite song. Matt loved to perform for his family when they played music for him, even before he could crawl.
Matt was given the room midway between his parent's room and his sister's room on the south side of their two story home, while his brother occupied a large room upstairs. Matt's room was painted yellow and there was a pair of framed headshots of Jack and Jill hung on the wall. It was the smaller of the three downstairs bedrooms and sat just above the water pump, which made an interesting clicking sound when it turned on and an unforgettable higher pitched tone while it ran. The room was comfortable, Matt liked to listen to the water pump run and was lulled to sleep by it's intermittent sounds, though at night the shadows in the room were scary sometimes. Matt's room had a doorway on both the NW and NE corners. It was an open through way in an inverted "L" shaped hallway that connected all of the rooms on the lower level. One way led to the living room, and the other to the kitchen, and the kitchen connected to the living room forming a closed square.
