Estie Ann Martin was nearly famous - or so she liked to remind any and everybody with a fairly annoying frequency. The woman inspired many a child and adult to learn the joys of music, yet, the joy of her life wasn't what she'd done with her life, it seemed to rest with whose girlfriend she'd been. Flash dreams and nonsense, I say. I'm not so sure she would have liked the kind of fame she would have gotten if she'd gone through with her original marriage plans. Regrets are as cold as the stone on your grave, they say.

I'd heard about Estie Ann Martin for most of my life, it seems, (mostly from my mama,) though I didn't meet her until I was in high school, and Gemma introduced me to her. (Mama, of course, is where I inherited my penchant for gossip, if you hadn't guessed so yet, and she got a daily earfull from her mama, so I come by it naturally.) Estie Martin - or Estelle, as she was really named, was a contemporary of my grandmother's, actually. By the time I met her, she was pretty old - or so it seemed to sixteen year old me. In actuality, she probably wasn't more than 65 or so, but the gray hair and musty smellin' flowered dresses put her immediately into the "old lady" category to me.

Mrs. Martin taught music theory twice a week to my friend Gemma while she was growin' up, and was a well-known figure around town as well as over at Durwood County Community College, where she taught the same. The woman did know her music, I'll give her that, but rather than bein' known for that, or wantin' to be known as the woman who brought music to our soothe our savage little breasts, she seemed to prefer to be defined by the near-scandal she caused with her first engagement.

Estie grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and had two great gifts as a teenager: her musical talent, and her blonde flirty style. Estie attracted men by the droves, and one of the men she attracted was a young singer with one of those big bands that was so popular at the time. Estie was a "groupie", in a way, one of the earliest ones, I'd guess. She followed that band all over the country, both pesterin' them to let her sing with them, and always flirtin' her big blue eyes at their main singer. When the band leader called her on it, she'd always say that it was just pure chance that she was stayin' at the hotel, or resort where they were playin', or just happened to be havin' dinner at that club.

Eventually, the band leader relented, and let her sing a song or two with them, probably to get her to quit pesterin' him, I imagine. To his very great surprise, she was good. Very good. She could hold an audience of the rowdiest young people in the palm of her hand with her melodic voice. Surely she must have been a match for the young man that was the band's main singer. There was even talk of a recording contract at one point, though I'm not sure it ever got beyond the talkin' about stage. As far as I've been able to tell or find out, such a thing never came to pass.

I don't suppose I can really blame the girl for what happened; whenever you have groups of young folks whose only or main interest is entertainin' themselves, you're bound to have trouble brewin'. That's just what did happen, in fact: trouble.

Men do have a tendency to fight over pretty girls, and some girls don't seem to notice that they're causin' the ruckus in the first place. That was Estie. The summer that she was 20, she got herself involved with both the band leader, and the singer in that band: the girlfriend of one, the fiancee of the other, all within the space of a month. How she managed to keep it from either of them for even a day or two, I can't imagine. Through late night dates, daytime frolics, and afternoon band rehearsals, she managed to keep each of the men from knowin' her relationship with the other. Since she was only an occassional singer, and not a headliner or whatever they called 'em in those days, she wasn't with them every night. Somehow, she pulled it off, and somehow, both men fell in love with her.

If Estie had just settled on one man, regardless of which one it was she chose, she probably could have had either one. Since she chose instead, to play both sides of the barn door, she ended up with neither of them in the end. It could have been worse, I suppose: one of the young men could have died from the knife wounds.

After two tear-filled nights spent going back and forth to two different rooms in the hospital emergency ward, Estie finally broke down, and called her daddy to come to get her. Explainin' to him what she'd been up to that summer was probably harder on him that it was on her, to tell the truth, since he'd thought that she was behavin' herself and travelling with college friends. His disappointment in her lies and machinations hung heavy around her neck for the rest of her life. He dragged her derriere back home, and made her finish college, though he relented in the end, and let her study music rather than English Literature like he'd planned. No public singin' though, let alone goin' out to clubs or dance halls.

Estie became a music teacher, and because her daddy wanted to keep her far from scandal, the family moved to our small town soon afterwards, where there were no clubs, or nightlife. The only place to teach was the small Durwood County Community College, the only men there were to meet were staid professors or factory workers, and the only marryin' or carryin' on to be done, would be with your own husband. Her daddy picked one of those out for her too, since he no longer had faith in her judgements.

I can't say that she was unhappy, because surely teachin' music to generations of young folks must have brought her some joy, and she seemed to be content with Lem Martin most of the time, but sometimes, I can't help but imagine her up on a bandstand, blue eyes meetin' blue eyes, singin' love songs for the generations.