When I started the car this morning, pop music came out of the radio
instead of the usual Public Radio.  What must have been repressed memory
all of a sudden came rushing back.
__________

Sunday afternoon I was driving through downtown Davis, CA with windows
wide open and the soothing sounds of Jim Sveda wafting past my ears.  (I
love the way he says "Shosta-kyo-vich).  The weather was as bright and
fresh as the faces of the young college students pouring back into town
to resume studies at the local college.

Mr. Sveda was critiquing the more popular opera singers--Church, Bocelli,
etc.; when he dropped the needle on a particular Leslie Garrett track.
As I rolled to a stop between two cars, both packed with frat dudes, all
of us waiting for the light to change, the strains of "iiiiiii want to
be a Prima DonnnnNA" began and floated out both windows like a pair of
AWOL lace panties dancing on the wind between clothesline and Earth.

Though my forehead began to sweat like the keg in the back of the truck
next to me, I thought, no--I'm not going to change the channel.

"ah ah  hah hah haaaaah...."

I'm not going to turn it down.

"ah ah  hah hah haaaaaaaaah...."

(Yes, Jim, breathy and strained, now please start talking so they think
it's an educational tape.) No luck, and the high "C" is coming.

It never did.  In a pathetic act of, er, Voightus interruptus; I changed
the channel thus silencing my soprano.

John Smyth
Sacramento, CA