[...] What subjects did I paint? I was born in the south, you know, and the first thing that I painted, which I still have around somewhere, is a painting of... I'm going to have a drink, I can't think. (laughter) What is it when the moon and the sun... an eclipse. (laughter) I'm ready for surgery now. When I was a small boy in a little place called Woodville, Georgia... it was not what you call a village, it was almost smaller than a village... but they had practically a total eclipse. And it was cotton country and I used to every now and then make a half a pence picking cotton and so forth. But our black population were the ones who really picked the cotton and when this happened and the world became dark, they began being very religious, beautifully religious. They began to sing in the cotton fields and to pray because to many of them it was a very frightening situation. So that was the first thing that I painted. And the second thing I painted was in that same town, we had a man by the name of Uncle Peter who was a church attendant. He cleaned up and everything, but he always sat under a huge stained glass window. He was a dwarf and he was an interesting looking little man and he had the long pole, you know, that if one of the children fell asleep, he would sneak up and tap them. So I painted Uncle Peter. And I thought they were both so good I just quit. (laughter) So that's what I started out doing, scenes from my childhood, really.
[Convention: Midcon, England, September 1986, transcribed in Guyer, 1993.]
Music
What kind of music? You’re gonna croak. I like the big bands. The old big bands. There is some of the new music I do like. Some of it. Not an awful lot of it. Thank god, we are blessed with two stations on the coast that play nothing but the old Miller, Goodman, the Duke and all. I don’t know, I just can’t get... You know, that was hot in my time and it just... I don’t know, that’s my kind of music. I love it.
[Convention: Vulkon, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 1/17/88]