When I was a little boy and I would tell my grandfather Casey something I thought was terribly important or interesting, he would feign amazement and say, “Who knew?”
The first few times he responded in this way I replied, “I did.” Eventually I came to realize Who knew? was his way of saying, “Oh my gosh,” or “Isn’t that something,” or “How unexpected.”
By the time I was a teenager, I knew that many Jewish people used the expression, and to this day when I encounter someone who comes out with Who knew? (usually with a tone of humorous irony) I feel an immediate affinity.
What does this have to do with our new CD Through the Fire? Well… when we were making the album we had about forty-five minutes of music to present. A standard CD holds about seventy-two minutes of content and we thought it would be fun to fill some of the remaining space with a story or two of mine, one of the Healing stories and…
“Oh please read Of Onyx and Guinea Pigs,” said Marcia, emphatically. “It’s both believable and beyond believable, and it’s so funny.”
So I recorded the memoir in Peter Temple’s studio where we’ve made all our albums and where I’ve recorded all my audio books, and Peter thought the story was fiction, which it is not, though it certainly could be.
Now that Through the Fire is out in the world and we’ve gotten responses from friends and DJs, Of Onyx and Guinea Pigs is by far the most talked about track on the album.
My response is “Who knew?” And the answer is, Marcia did.
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a link to a site with all the downloading/streaming/listening options for Through the Fire.
https://throughthefiretoddwalton.hearnow.com/
and a link to where one can buy the actual CD of Through the Fire
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRSNHR6H/ref=dm_rwp_pur_lnd_albm_unrg