Saturday, January 12, 2019

George Singleton and the strange tale of twenty pineapple sandwiches


(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Envy of a pineapple sandwich became joke” was originally published in the Jan. 17, 1991 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

As I have stated many times, I think a person who didn’t grow up during the Great Depression was deprived a lot in life. This doesn’t mean that I think we should have another one just to prove my point. But those of us who did survive those hard times are better for it.

As you know by now, I grew up on a farm in a rural community. We did not want for anything because we grew almost all of our food and my parents were able to provide a good home and plenty of clothing. We did not have a great deal of surplus money to spend; it was all used to keep the farm and family going.

It wasn’t until I was in junior high school that Sweet Water High School was able to open a school lunchroom for its students. Until this happened, everyone carried lunches from home. Some owned nice metal lunchboxes, while others had only the brown paper sacks to bring lunches in. These paper sacks were folded neatly after each use and carried back home to be used again and again.

We thought we were staring to death, but we didn’t realize we were eating “high on the hog” by today’s standards. My lunch would consist of one or two steak biscuits or a fried egg and bacon biscuit, a slice of pie, or an apple or peach tart. Peanut brittle or other candy was added for the sweet tooth.

One of my classmates, whose father was the foreman at the local sawmill, was the envy of most of the class. She brought sandwiches to school made of sliced store-bought bread. These sandwiches consisted of chees, potted meat with mayonnaise, and above all, sliced pineapple.

As we would gather to eat our lunch, my mouth would drool for a taste of one of those pineapple and mayonnaise sandwiches. I could just imagine my teeth biting into that juicy pineapple. I could think of nothing else, as I sat there eating those old biscuits.

One day, the unexpected happened. This classmate shyly suggested that I trade her one of my old steak biscuits for one of her luscious pineapple sandwiches. I was almost unable to answer her; I had been taken completely by surprise. I was so eager to make the deal, I almost dropped the sandwich when she handed it to me.

As I carefully unwrapped the clear wax paper from around the sandwich, I took a large bite from the pineapple and mayonnaise delicacy. Much to my embarrassment, I almost strangled on the pineapple and mayonnaise. After much coughing and wheezing, I was able to finish.

As the school year progressed, my classmate would continue to trade me her pineapple sandwich for my steak or ham biscuit. I became the envy of all the country boys in my class.

As the years passed, this became a kind of joke on me, even after I moved into senior high school. The nice lady who managed the new school lunchroom must have known about our sandwich trading; many times when I would go through the line, Mrs. Daniels would lean over and whisper that she was sorry she didn’t have a pineapple sandwich to give me today.

But it wasn’t to end there. The night before my graduation, we had our class night. This was the time when the graduating seniors left their favorite slogans, or anything they wished, to the new senior class. The new senior class could, in turn, give what they wished to those graduating.

The evening program was such that all activities were built around a young lady who was dressed as a gypsy fortune teller. She predicted the future for the graduating class members and the events of their coming years.

All knew that I was to leave for the Marine Training Center at Parris Island, S.C. the day after graduation. As I stepped forth to hear my fortune told and to learn of my future life’s predictions, she told of me later becoming a Marine. She then reached under the table where her crystal ball rested and presented me with a sack of 20 pineapple sandwiches.

From the card pinned to the large paper sack, the fortune teller read aloud these words: “Wherever you go, may there be a juicy pineapple sandwich waiting for you at the end of your journey; these should help get you started.”

From the second row in the audience, Mrs. Daniels, the school lunchroom manager, was laughing out loud.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)

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