could you tell the story behind “Dear Mrs. Touma” and how that came about._
PETER CORTNER: I was, before Field Day was recorded and we were out of material, I had gone back to Maryland to spend some time with my family and one morning at breakfast time, my mom told me that this fellow I know named Leo had been killed. He’s been struck by a bus a block or so from my house and Leo was at that time, probably in his late 30s. Leo was a guy from the neighborhood; he always lived about two blocks down. He was struck with polio when he was young and at the time, I think that the approach to treatment or at least what he was able to receive as treatment for polio got him out of the wheelchair and got him walking…
So this was before JONAS SALK came up with the vaccine?
PETER CORTNER: Yeah and it left him with a difficulty in speaking and because of that, he went through school with the assumption that he was mentally retarded, which he wasn’t. But that assumption sort of steered everyone’s expectations for him. So as he was older, he always lived at home but he was able to work. He was doing stock, taking out trash and cleaning up at a local department store where I also worked when I was a teenager and when I was in my early 20s. So we got to know each other there and we got to be really good friends and when I befriended him, I realized that some people in the neighborhood had an impression of him that had no bearing on reality at all. And one person who had a really poor impression of Leo was a neighbor who lived directly across the street from me. When Leo would go to work in the morning or go home, he would tend to shake his head back and forth a lot or he would stu le or talk to himself and the neighbor would always say “there goes that no good drunk” and “we don’t need to have this guy in the neighborhood”. And I thought that this neighbor knows perfectly well that Leo isn’t drunk and he seems to enjoy insulting him and he seems to enjoy having someone who he can talk down about. And when Leo died, this neighbor was one of the first ones to say “oh isn’t this a terrible thing” and I was disgusted by what I took to be him very hypocritical. In later years I think back that maybe, in fact, he wasn’t being hypocritical.
Maybe he wanted to atone for this behavior.
PETER CORTNER: Maybe he did. It’s not like I ever asked him. I just took and got mad about it and ended up writing a song about it.
http://bigtakeover.com/interviews/interview-peter-cortner-part-2
could you tell the story behind “Dear Mrs. Touma” and how that came about._
PETER CORTNER: I was, before Field Day was recorded and we were out of material, I had gone back to Maryland to spend some time with my family and one morning at breakfast time, my mom told me that this fellow I know named Leo had been killed. He’s been struck by a bus a block or so from my house and Leo was at that time, probably in his late 30s. Leo was a guy from the neighborhood; he always lived about two blocks down. He was struck with polio when he was young and at the time, I think that the approach to treatment or at least what he was able to receive as treatment for polio got him out of the wheelchair and got him walking…
So this was before JONAS SALK came up with the vaccine?
PETER CORTNER: Yeah and it left him with a difficulty in speaking and because of that, he went through school with the assumption that he was mentally retarded, which he wasn’t. But that assumption sort of steered everyone’s expectations for him. So as he was older, he always lived at home but he was able to work. He was doing stock, taking out trash and cleaning up at a local department store where I also worked when I was a teenager and when I was in my early 20s. So we got to know each other there and we got to be really good friends and when I befriended him, I realized that some people in the neighborhood had an impression of him that had no bearing on reality at all. And one person who had a really poor impression of Leo was a neighbor who lived directly across the street from me. When Leo would go to work in the morning or go home, he would tend to shake his head back and forth a lot or he would stu le or talk to himself and the neighbor would always say “there goes that no good drunk” and “we don’t need to have this guy in the neighborhood”. And I thought that this neighbor knows perfectly well that Leo isn’t drunk and he seems to enjoy insulting him and he seems to enjoy having someone who he can talk down about. And when Leo died, this neighbor was one of the first ones to say “oh isn’t this a terrible thing” and I was disgusted by what I took to be him very hypocritical. In later years I think back that maybe, in fact, he wasn’t being hypocritical.
Maybe he wanted to atone for this behavior.
PETER CORTNER: Maybe he did. It’s not like I ever asked him. I just took and got mad about it and ended up writing a song about it.