Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Leontyne and Me

I met Joseph when I was 25 and he was 52, eight years younger than I am now. I shared my one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side in New York City with night-crawling cockroaches while Joseph, a successful writer, lived some blocks away in urban grandeur, including security gates that crisscrossed his windows. I said it was like living in a prison, and not for me.

Then came my first burglary.

"Immediately replace everything stolen," he advised. "Or everyday you'll feel like you've been robbed again."

In the years before I moved and got my own security gates, I lost bikes, television sets, my college ring, and several stereo systems. Amid the ongoing pillage, my record albums (with little value on the street or to pawnbrokers) remained untouched. After the second raid, Joseph handed me the RCA recording of Samuel Barber's Knoxville Summer: 1915.

"This is for you," he said.

Out of its jacket and removed from the white paper sleeve, the long-playing disc was the size of a dinner plate. It smelled of solvent; its face of perfect grooves gleamed. I fit the record on my new turntable. The needle dropped onto the record's edge and slid inward. Static, a brief interlude of woodwinds, then the lush soprano of Leontyne Price.

It has become that time of evening

when people sit on their porches, rocking gently, and talking gently...

People go by; things go by.

Sponsored
Sponsored

I grew up deep in the middle of the American Century in San Diego with its gold skies and endless summers, but James Agee's words sent me south to one summer night in 1915.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard

my father and mother have spread quilts.

We all lie there,

my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt,

and I too am lying there...

I threw a surprise birthday party for Joseph. With just two chairs and no table, his friends stood while others ate on my bed with plates on their laps. The electricity went off and I lit candles for light. There was no heat so I poured extra cayenne in the chili, thinking to solve the problem.

They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,

of nothing in particular,

of nothing at all in particular,

of nothing at all.

I was a small-town kid -- dumb, even innocent. But to fully take in the music, an experience of artistry and intention that was studied and complex, was to transform the listener. Who knows where change may lead?

All my people are larger bodies than mine,

quiet, with voices gentle and meaningless

like the voices of sleeping birds.

  1. It is ten years later and I am at graduation ceremonies at Yale. Leontyne Price sits on the dais, 20 feet straight ahead. She awaits her honorary doctorate in music. I am here to collect my third graduate degree, now own a condominium, and have won a postdoctoral year at Oxford -- all this while holding down a full-time tenured post. But there is a cost. I am so wrecked on drugs this afternoon that I am a human yo-yo, up and down. The diva notices and shoots me the same look my mother used to nail me with. Instantly I remain put.

I'm sure my record album is around someplace. Joseph, long ago, went missing.

One is an artist, he is living at home.

One is a musician, she is living at home.

One is my mother who is good to me.

One is my father who is good to me.

My father has turned 90. My mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease. They reside in San Diego. I live not far away. I neither drink nor do drugs. I live alone with a small dog and no security gates. One year ago, I wrote Joseph. He did not write back.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed.

Sleep, softly smiling, draws me unto her;

and those receive me, who quietly treat me

as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:

but will not, oh will not

not now, not ever,

but will never tell me who I am.

The RCA recording Knoxville Summer: 1915 with Leontyne Price is out of print. But recently a snatch of melody heard drifting off the radio and I am walking Manhattan's streets, warmed under San Diego skies, and 90 years before, am again beloved one summer evening.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

2024 continues to impress with yellowfin much closer to San Diego than they should be

New rockfish regulations coming this week as opener approaches
Next Article

Reader Music Issue short takes

Obervatory's mosh pit, frenetic Rafael Payare, Lemonhead chaos, bleedforthescene, Coronado Tasting Room

I met Joseph when I was 25 and he was 52, eight years younger than I am now. I shared my one-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side in New York City with night-crawling cockroaches while Joseph, a successful writer, lived some blocks away in urban grandeur, including security gates that crisscrossed his windows. I said it was like living in a prison, and not for me.

Then came my first burglary.

"Immediately replace everything stolen," he advised. "Or everyday you'll feel like you've been robbed again."

In the years before I moved and got my own security gates, I lost bikes, television sets, my college ring, and several stereo systems. Amid the ongoing pillage, my record albums (with little value on the street or to pawnbrokers) remained untouched. After the second raid, Joseph handed me the RCA recording of Samuel Barber's Knoxville Summer: 1915.

"This is for you," he said.

Out of its jacket and removed from the white paper sleeve, the long-playing disc was the size of a dinner plate. It smelled of solvent; its face of perfect grooves gleamed. I fit the record on my new turntable. The needle dropped onto the record's edge and slid inward. Static, a brief interlude of woodwinds, then the lush soprano of Leontyne Price.

It has become that time of evening

when people sit on their porches, rocking gently, and talking gently...

People go by; things go by.

Sponsored
Sponsored

I grew up deep in the middle of the American Century in San Diego with its gold skies and endless summers, but James Agee's words sent me south to one summer night in 1915.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard

my father and mother have spread quilts.

We all lie there,

my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt,

and I too am lying there...

I threw a surprise birthday party for Joseph. With just two chairs and no table, his friends stood while others ate on my bed with plates on their laps. The electricity went off and I lit candles for light. There was no heat so I poured extra cayenne in the chili, thinking to solve the problem.

They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,

of nothing in particular,

of nothing at all in particular,

of nothing at all.

I was a small-town kid -- dumb, even innocent. But to fully take in the music, an experience of artistry and intention that was studied and complex, was to transform the listener. Who knows where change may lead?

All my people are larger bodies than mine,

quiet, with voices gentle and meaningless

like the voices of sleeping birds.

  1. It is ten years later and I am at graduation ceremonies at Yale. Leontyne Price sits on the dais, 20 feet straight ahead. She awaits her honorary doctorate in music. I am here to collect my third graduate degree, now own a condominium, and have won a postdoctoral year at Oxford -- all this while holding down a full-time tenured post. But there is a cost. I am so wrecked on drugs this afternoon that I am a human yo-yo, up and down. The diva notices and shoots me the same look my mother used to nail me with. Instantly I remain put.

I'm sure my record album is around someplace. Joseph, long ago, went missing.

One is an artist, he is living at home.

One is a musician, she is living at home.

One is my mother who is good to me.

One is my father who is good to me.

My father has turned 90. My mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease. They reside in San Diego. I live not far away. I neither drink nor do drugs. I live alone with a small dog and no security gates. One year ago, I wrote Joseph. He did not write back.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed.

Sleep, softly smiling, draws me unto her;

and those receive me, who quietly treat me

as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:

but will not, oh will not

not now, not ever,

but will never tell me who I am.

The RCA recording Knoxville Summer: 1915 with Leontyne Price is out of print. But recently a snatch of melody heard drifting off the radio and I am walking Manhattan's streets, warmed under San Diego skies, and 90 years before, am again beloved one summer evening.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Flowering pear trees in Kensington not that nice

Empty dirt plots in front of Ken Cinema
Next Article

OSHA rules wall falls our fault

Who, U.S.?
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.