As Spring rolled around, Richard started having more fun. He found a stick that looked like a flintlock and designed a whole play about pioneers around it. Jacky Harris got some of the lesser rolls. They even brought chairs for the audience down to the edge of the ditch where the play's action was to take place. "Ah nobody's going to come see a play down at that old sewer ditch," Nene said. Grace Prettyman was a sourpuss and thought the whole thing was silly.
One day Richard found some red rocks marbled with white quartz that reminded him of pieces of uncooked roast. He put one in his grandmother's refrigerator only to have her give him a look that said, "Have you plumb taken leave of your senses?" She had NO imagination.
For special occasions, and Nene always contended that he was born on leap day and Grace Prettyman on Valentines, his grandmother would bake triple layer cakes with buttery yellow frosting and jellybeans all over them. Richard could have passed on the jelly beans; he wanted to get straight to the frosting.
Sometimes they drove out north to Great Aunt Maude Prettyman's house for Sunday dinner. She was fun, not like her sister. But that made Richard think about the sad story of grandmother, how she lost her first son to some kind of illness when he was two. His name had been Scott. Two years later Carl had been born and even Richard knew he was a bad replacement.
Richard never ceased to miss his own mother. Here are some of his letters to her: (add letters)
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