Monday, August 11, 2008

VISIT TO SAN QUENTIN PRISON

Although I was a biology major, one of the neatest experiences I had at the University of Redlands in southern California, was singing alto in the concert choir and touring seven western states for two weeks. We gave secular concerts mornings in high schools and sacred performances in churches in the evening. Church people put us up in their homes at night. When we stayed in St. George, we doubled the protestant population the minute we entered town.

The next year, my roommate, also a choir member, and I transferred to the University of California's School of Nursing in San Francisco. When we received a phone call inviting us to join them that spring in a San Quentin concert, we whooped.

The bus picked us up at our dorm, and down we went to Marin county and the sprawling prison. By the time we rolled through its gates, it was over 100 years old, having been constructed in 1852 by inmates who slept aboard ship during the night and worked on it by day.

I wasn't even old enough to vote, and if my parents had known I was in that prison singing to life-without-parole men, they'd have had heart attacks.

It's not tough to understand why those inmates were one of the most appreciative audiences we'd ever had. Jack Crowder, who'd later appear with Pearl Bailey in Hello, Dolly! and then in TV's Roots, sang with us. When his rich basso voice belted out Freedom!, that pretty much brought down the house.

Because we'd sung for lifers, we were allowed in the infamous Green Room, where executions are held. As the process was explained to us, nausea rolled through me. No one spoke until we were safely back on the bus, and no one joked on the return to our dorm.
Posted by Dee Ann Palmer 10:43 AM 0 Comments:

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