07/03/05

                                    From the novel "The Osceola Community Club"

     I have only one good thing to say about Richard Martin – he got me over Jake Wray. And, Lord knows, Jake Wray needed getting over.

     By the time the summer of 1958 came even close to closing I had covered the walls of my grandparents’ tiniest bedroom with Jake’s name. I not only wrote his name all over the walls, but wrote down everything I knew about him – height, weight, eye color, hair color, birth-date, a description of his car, and on and on and on. I sure had laid back grandparents. Any other pair would have murdered a grandkid for scribbling on their bedroom walls.

     But I was blessed of God; all my folks did was laugh about it. Matter of fact, until the day Granddaddy died he still brought up the “Jake” walls every so often and still got a belly laugh from the telling and re-telling.

      Mama didn’t care too much for Richard Martin. She was suspicious of him from the first Friday evening he and his cousin Gerry came to court me and my cousin Della. For the entire summer of ’59 we four cousins “courted” on Nanny Ellie’s front porch. Quite frankly though, none of us was particularly mad about the cousin we were paired up with. I’m sure none of us felt surges of anxiety or surges of love adrenalin either. We were just two sets of cousins without a steady love interest at the moment. (A rarity for Della! After all, Della could date, whereas I was relegated to whatever lovesick Lancelot would be content to rock back and forth with me in my grandparents’ front porch swing.)

     Yes, we made a foursome. It even went so far as Richard bringing his parents, Rick and Ruby Martin, to meet my family. The Martins drove all the way to Hendersonville for this formal “meeting of the families.” But it was a strained meeting. We went for lunch at some forgettable restaurant out Main Street. Mr. Martin was cordial, if uncomfortable. Mrs. Martin was openly hostile, her central complaint being how many of Richard’s shirts he had given to me. (Girls back then wore their boyfriend’s shirts, alot. Since Richard was small-boned, and short, his fit me quite nicely. There was a pink and tan patterned one I was especially enamored of. Besides, the Martins owned a men’s clothing shop in Bradyville, so what was the rub? Every shirt Richard owned was bought wholesale! The cheapskates!)

                                  RICHARD MARTIN’S

                               DISTINCTIVE MENSWEAR

          109 UNIVERSITY AVENUE              TEL. 6856

                               BRADYVILLE, FLORIDA

    After eating an unfriendly afternoon meal with Richard’s parents I badgered Richard into confessing the truth about his folks’ feelings concerning me. He explained that they were partial to the girl he had before me – Corinna Sanders. Seems they were politicking to patch things up between Richard and Corinna. Their disdain for me didn’t offend me, not really. Richard didn’t mean that much to me. I didn’t tell him so, but he could have returned to Miss Corinna Sanders anytime, and I would never have dribbled a tear.

     I suppose Rick and Ruby Martin were elated when I met my Jack, and promptly forgot about their Richard. However, their elation may have been short-lived, for the next bit of news Della brought back from the Malcolm High School gossip line was that Richard had gotten his beloved Corinna in trouble. There was a hasty wedding, a short marriage, and a hateful divorce. But, you can’t have everything, Mr. and Mrs. Martin. After all, you did gain a grandson – Richard Michael Martin III.

       Like I said, my mama never cared for Richard Martin. She took to his effervescent cousin Gerry, the one Della held hands with all summer, but she didn’t trust Richard. She said he had a sneaky look in his eye. (I don’t know whether the sneakiness was in his right eye or his left. I never asked Mama.)

     Mama suspicioned that Richard and Gerry spent the summer of ’59 in Osceola just to get out of Bradyville. She said she just knew Richard was in some kind of trouble there and needed to stay away from the police. “The law’s on the lookout for that boy,” she’d say while she, my grandmother, and I shelled cow peas and snap beans into bent-up legless colanders nestled in our laps, the three of us rocking rhythmically on the screen porch. Mama would declare with a sanctimonious edge, while snapping bean pods loudly, pop – snap, “He’s just hidin’ out in this here little town ’til the heat’s off. He’s got a shifty eye.” Pop. Snap.

     Whenever Mama started up such talk Nanny Ellie would say – “You been readin’ too many True Detective books, Jen, and watchin’ too damn much Perry Mason. I been seein’ you swoonin’ over that big ol’ fat man lawyer. You don’t have a thing to base such craziness on. Leave them young boys be.”

     “But I can read faces,” Mama would argue, “and that boy’s got a dishonest face.”

     The argument usually fizzled out when Nanny Ellie’d say – “Jen, you’re just irked ’cause your little girl don’t favor David Howard,” or whenever all the peas and beans were shelled.

      Richard Martin’s parents’ visit to Hendersonville confirmed Mama’s premise, in her own view anyway. “See?” she insisted, “they sent him over to Osceola for the summer, ’til things cooled down in Bradyville. Now the heat’s off, so they’re ready to grab him back home. It all fits.”

     It was somewhat insulting to have Mama constantly harping that I was only used as a hideout for a juvenile gangster on the lam. After all, although I kept it from Mama, Richard did give me the engagement ring he had bought for Corinna, the one she had tossed back at him the night before the Larson Watermelon Festival. (Della heard this tidbit from some school friends.) And when I gave the diamond ring back to Richard, because I’d met Jack, didn’t Richard throw it out the car window because I had wounded him so deeply? Didn’t that mean he cared for me, a little?           

        Last month I shopped Sears in the monster mall, here in Hendersonville. The piped in music a balding baby boomer manager had selected was a medley of familiar oldies from the 50’s. The catchy tune of “Corinna, Corinna” wafted throughout the ladies’ lingerie department where I was sifting through racks of lacy nightshirts, trying to locate one with long sleeves.

      I never hear Ray Peterson’s ballad “Corinna” without thinking of Richard Martin and his Corinna. Wonder where they are now. Richard Michael Martin III, by now, has probably spawned a Richard Michael Martin IV.

      And the beat goes on.

*Baked Pineapple                                     Lucille Sanders

1 #2 can crushed pineapple

¾ C. sugar

2 T. cornstarch or 4 T. flour

2 eggs, well beaten

½ C. cheddar cheese, grated

Cinnamon

Butter

Pour pineapple and juice into a mixing bowl.

Mix sugar and cornstarch and add to pineapple along with beaten eggs and cheese. Stir well.

Pour into greased shallow baking dish. 

Dot with butter.

Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees.