Anton Shelton is a double-degree fourth-year majoring in Jazz Trombone Performance and Law and Society. Shelton is a four-year member of the varsity baseball team and was named team captain in the last two seasons, becoming only the sixth player in program history to be named captain in consecutive seasons. Shelton also serves as a Lead Resident Assistant and is a member of the Title IX Student Advisory Board and the Athletic Coalition to End Sexual Harm. Last winter, in the midst of his junior year, Shelton lost his home in the Palisades Fire. In this piece, Shelton sat down with me to discuss what the tragic day was like, how it affected him and his time at Oberlin, and how reflection and acceptance continue to help him move forward.
Gray smoke stuffed the horizon. Sirens screamed. Ash fell gently onto the hood of a 1999 Ford F150.
In the morning, it was a brush fire. Now, at 8 p.m., it was a fire tornado.
Just hours prior at 11:32 a.m., Anton Shelton was leaving his house in the Pacific Palisades. It was a normal day for Shelton, who was enjoying his time off during Winter Term.
Shelton recalled seeing smoke up in the mountains about three miles up the road as he pulled out of his driveway, but didn’t think much of it. The Santa Ana winds were roaring; the heat was dry and oppressive. Small fires popped up frequently, with fire season in full force.
As Shelton continued a few miles down Temescal Canyon Road, he saw vehicles backed up for a mile and a half. He watched in disbelief as a car flew up the road at triple-digit speeds, past a police blockade and a row of cars bumper-to-bumper.
“‘Oh f**k,’” Shelton thought to himself. “That guy’s going to save his house. He’s rushing back to his house.”
Knowing it was no longer a smaller fire, internal alarms started to go off inside Shelton’s head. He rushed back home, where he saw an off-duty fireman standing outside, surveying.
“Winds are crazy,” the fireman told Shelton. “They’re supposed to get to 100 miles an hour. You guys should be fine, but it’ll get real close.”
Upon getting inside and flipping on the news, he saw the fire was getting bigger and the winds stronger. It was time to evacuate.
Within an hour and a half, in a disorganized madness, Shelton did his best to pack up everything essential — although who really knows what that entails.
“It was very chaotic overall, because you’re packing s**t in duffles, not knowing if you’re going to need to do it,” Shelton said. “I had a bunch of files in my room. And I’m thinking, ‘All right, I don’t really need that. Well, what if I never see it again? What if it literally burns and disappears? Maybe I do want to keep that.’”
Although many people in Southern California had grown accustomed to seeing new fires appear while watching the news from their couch, evacuating was an entirely new experience for Shelton. There are few guidelines to follow, and no set instructions on what to take and what to leave.
“You have no idea what to expect,” Shelton said. “Now we know [that] when you leave, you film everything in your house so you can send it to insurance, so you can prove what you had. Didn’t know to do any of that s**t. It was very scattered.”
Shelton loaded three cars with his sister Valentina, his mother Lolita, and their dog Harpo — his father Ron, was traveling — and joined a line of hundreds of cars, all packed to the brim with irreplaceable objects, mementos, and memories.
“You’re just sitting there scared,” Shelton said. “Hoping and hoping that something’s going to magically turn around and hopeful that [the] fire doesn’t get all the way to your house.”
The next morning, Shelton, armed with a handful of instruments, photos, hard drives, and no clothes, — besides the ones he was wearing — headed up to a vista in Santa Monica where he knew his house should be in view.
“I got to that point, and I didn’t see anything,” Shelton said. “I know there’s supposed to be a house there and there’s nothing there. It’s just a road and nothing. I’m thinking, ‘It’s gone.’ There’s not a chimney. There’s no framing. It’s just nothing. And there was still a telephone pole up right next door, right next to the house, which means it’s not too smokey to see that far.”
Earlier that morning, a family friend who lived a few doors down reached out to Shelton’s family to ensure their safety. After hearing everybody was okay, they sent Ring doorbell footage from their home.
“You can see just flames,” Shelton, who has never seen the video, recalled from his parents’ recollection. “You can’t see anything but flames. And they just slowly come toward the house, and the camera cuts out. Their house just burned on camera.”
Shelton’s house was four doors down.
At 4 p.m., he evacuated. At 10 p.m., his house was gone.
In the aftermath, Shelton stayed with his family in Ojai — about an hour north — for a few days. He and his family then came back down to LA and stayed at a hotel, surrounded by other Palisades fire victims.
Two weeks later, Shelton returned to Oberlin for preseason baseball practices. One moment his life was flipped upside down; the next, he was thrust back into the daily routine he had grown accustomed to in Northeast Ohio.
“It was helpful to be [at Oberlin],” Shelton said. “The house is gone, everything I own is gone, all these memories, and then to still be able to say, ‘Alright, my life day-to-day is unchanged.’ I still get to do all the things I want to do. I have this support network.”
In March, almost two months to the day he lost his house, Shelton performed his junior recital in front of his parents and the entire baseball team. His main piece, titled “15200,” was a track dedicated to his childhood home. 15200 was the address.
“That was a therapeutic experience because I personally loved the tune,” Shelton said. “My bandmates, too, were incredibly supportive and understanding. That was just a very heartfelt, emotional moment for me.”
He plans to professionally record “15200” in the near future.
In the aftermath of his recital, Shelton found himself right back in the middle of his rigorous baseball and academic schedule. Despite that, he still found time for reflection.
Last spring break, the baseball team traveled to Southern California for a slew of games. On an off day, Shelton visited his address for the first time since evacuating.
“I got to see just a pile of rubble, which was an emotionally important experience,” Shelton said. “I was kind of, maybe, feeling the first seeds of acceptance. There was a change. There was an emotional evolution. Once I got back to school, my life was completely normal — except for knowing that everything I have in my dorm room is every single thing I own.”
Last season, amidst the sudden upheaval, Shelton hit .183.
“[Baseball] was not at the forefront of my mind,” Shelton recalled. “I was not in a mental state to be playing well. I put too much pressure on myself.”
But this season, Shelton has come back with a fresh approach, and a fresh mentality. He currently leads the team in batting average, hitting .383 more than halfway through the season.
“This year, I’ve really had a lot more fun — by choice,” Shelton said. “I take advantage of every opportunity, remembering that these are some of the last times I’m going to be able to do these things. There’s no reason to not have fun and live it up.”
After the fire, Shelton’s perspective shifted.
“You realize how fragile so many things are in life,” Shelton said. “I’m so grateful to have an opportunity to do so many incredible unique things. [There’s] no reason not to take advantage and enjoy everything I have while I have it.”
In his four years, Shelton will complete an extremely rare — if not unprecedented — feat. He is completing a double-degree in Jazz Trombone Performance and Law and Society in four years, while being a four-year varsity athlete. A typical double-degree major takes five years, without factoring in being an athlete.
But for Shelton, the workload is not too much. College classes, Conservatory classes and performances, and baseball all act as individual outlets from each other. A typical day includes three to four hours of each.
“[I’m] just constantly doing something,” Shelton said. “My first few years, the big question I would always get was, ‘What do you do for fun?’ But that is what I do for fun. My classes are fun, my 33 credits are fun.”
When Shelton returns to California, he often goes alone to visit the site where his old home stood. It’s therapeutic.
“It comes back to that whole acceptance thing and sitting with the emotions,” Shelton said. “[I] get to go back to [my] childhood bedroom. I get to stand there totally alone. I get to feel what the house was and what that represented and all the memories there. I get to re-experience what it felt like to hit in the batting cage with Dad. Even though I can’t do that again, I get to live that again, on my own.”
