Born in
Berkeley, raised in San Francisco’s Parkside District, E. Martin Pedersen (Earl
to family) took degrees from FCC, UOP, SFSU, SJSU, attended UCSC, Foothill
College, Sac State, moved to Sicily where he teaches English at the local
university – married, no kids, pushing 70.
That’s
the abbreviated version; here’s a more colorful, semi-complete one. First
memory: fear, terror, shame, clutching father’s fingers at the Chinese New
Year’s Parade with brass cymbals crashing and firecrackers popping around his
feet (age 3). The dragon still scares him. Martin, though, did like the giant
train at Fleischaker Zoo, the distorted mirrors at Playland at the Beach, and the smell of roasting coffee driving onto the Bay Bridge.
His first film was Snow White at the Parkside Theater. He walked there with his
mom.
He
walked to school too (Parkside Elementary) and the corner grocery and Dad’s
church (Parkside Methodist) and the Parkside Library, the greatest place on
earth. For longer trips, like down to the beach, which he could see from his
house, he took the green and tan streetcar (Taraval line). One time he
experimented by walking home from kindergarten with his eyes closed and ran
smack into a rose hedge. Numerous thorns in the face and head, a trail of blood
up the front steps, still a scar under his hairline.
Martin
learned to read before he started school and in first grade argued with the
young substitute about whether the U had a tail or not. The class turned
against him, and he spent recess crying on the sub’s lap. A life lesson:
question authority and you’ll get hugged by a pretty girl. Another time his
friends Dennis and Tommy (Dennis the Menace) picked him up on the playground by
hands and feet to swing him but dropped him on his back. Crying occurred again;
all were sent to the principal’s office. Martin, the victim, got punished
unjustly.
He often
walked alone to the market, and one day the grocer gave him a dollar too much in
change. Mom sent it back. The grocer said Martin was an honest kid and could
take any candy bar he wanted. He stared at the candy stand for about half an
hour until he finally chose a Big Hunk, the biggest candy bar there. On the
block-and-a-half way home, the whole thing disappeared. Poof.
The
Pedersens did not get a television until Martin was six: a blessing. But to see
a show—the Cisco Kid or Howdy Doody—he had to go to a friend’s house. That’s
where he watched the live broadcast of Romper Room starring his little brother,
Paul, some other kids and Miss Nancy, the host. Martin burned with envy that he wasn’t
there. His mom arrived to watch the second half of the show and then took
Martin with her to pick up Paul from the studio. Martin’s most prized
possession is the photo of Miss Nancy with her arms around both him and Paul.
Martin’s
story-telling career started in first grade when he would walk home from school
every day with a couple of Chinese girls and tell them about his exploits
during the night. He said he walked to the ocean, about 15 blocks away, and
stepped into the mouth of his friend, a whale, a la Pinocchio. Then they’d go
around the world and have adventures. Lies brought popularity, that is, he made
the girls giggle every day.
The
family moved several times. Martin learned to skip rocks on the San Joaquin
River by the railroad tracks. He waved to the engineers, who waved back. The
guys in the caboose never did. He was a good rock skipper but never played
Little League because he didn’t have a glove. In third grade, his buddy, Sean,
stole something from the drugstore, and they both got caught. Sean remembers
the incident as Martin doing the shoplifting.
Martin
played cello in the school orchestra and, to be cool, carried the half-size
instrument home over his shoulder like a hobo’s bundle. The neck broke. Dang. Then
in junior high he played the Sousaphone and in high school graduated to the plastic
ukulele. Now he owns about a dozen treasured stringed instruments.
One day
in the fall, Mr. Griffin, Martin’s super fourth grade teacher, was called on
the intercom to come to the office. He left the class alone. The students had
never been left alone before. Half an hour later, Mr. Griffin came back to
class sobbing. Everyone was scared. He said that President Kennedy had been
shot and the kids’ parents had been called to come get them. In the meantime, they
watched Walter Cronkite on the classroom TV (wealthy school for the times). The
worst day.
Also in
fourth grade, Mr. Griffin published a booklet of student poetry, including
Martin’s. Seeing his name in print inspired him to write a play for the talent
show. Martin played a mustache-twirling villain who got horse laughs when he keeled
over; a cute girl named Denise played the damsel in distress. They were the
only two in the class whose favorite Beatle was George.
Summers
were spent in the Santa Cruz Mountains or down by the beach in Aptos. Once
Martin stepped in a wasp’s nest at summer camp. Result: 18 stings and
life-saving antihistamine. Other summers were spent in Yosemite Valley and up
in Tuolumne Meadows, where Martin went on day hikes with the legendary ranger,
Carl Sharsmith.
One time
Martin found his youngest brother, Don, drinking ant poison. He called his
mother, who worked at the Probation Office at the time, and she said to squirt
a shot of dishwashing detergent in his mouth, that she would be right home. Don
puked up his guts, and the doctor said he’d be fine. This method is no longer
advised, but it works.
High
School in the San Joaquin Valley involved sex, drugs, and race riots—all of
which Martin tried to avoid. He was two years younger than many of his
classmates, and known as the Frisco Kid, not a compliment. His real friends lived
in other towns, a Greyhound ticket away. For example, he had a Chicano friend
whose mother called Martin her ‘Okie son’. He liked that.
In an
otherwise dreary high school, Martin did have an exceptional English teacher who
made him a deal. Read 20 books in one semester and give her oral reports for an
A. No other work. He hasn’t quit reading since. Thank you Miss Estes.
In 1973,
when he applied for a summer job in Yosemite but didn’t get it, Martin spent
the summer watching the Watergate hearings and arguing with his grandfather
about Nixon over the chessboard. That summer he also wrote a novel that he
carried around for ten years, then burned. Later he moved into a converted
garage and continued playing chess with his grandfather, who had returned to
college at age 72 to finish his degree in journalism. People thought him nuts,
but he wrote articles for magazines like Modern
Maturity for nearly ten years. Martin proofread his drafts.
In
college, Martin became interested in Movement Education, New Games, the Abalone
Alliance, Greenpeace, organic gardening, vegetarianism, film-making, etc. He
taught in Zimbabwe, Sonora Mexico, and in traditional and experimental schools
in California. In addition, he taught English to the Vietnamese boat people and
migrant farm workers. Martin has also worked as a paperboy, house-sitter, brick
cleaner, dishwasher, carpenter, house painter, roofer, tree cutter, vending
machine salesman, school janitor, farm laborer (grapes, almonds, apples),
waiter, peace activist, EFL writer, nanny, interpreter, translator, and folklorist.
He sung lead in the groups: SPIKE, The Silly Accents Jug Band, The California
Cowboy Orchestra, The Richmond Ramblers. 49 years of teaching, 40 in Messina.
On his
first overseas trip to Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Martin took 25 different airplanes,
spent a week or two each in Rome, Athens, Nairobi and Mexico City, visited
briefly London, Blantyre, Johannesburg, Lima, and Rio de Janiero. He had the
time of his life (war zones, starvation, spies, ambulance driving) and got
malaria in Africa, then typhoid in Mexico—the double whammy. After grad school,
he traveled to Egypt for half a year, then Jordan, Israel, Syria, Turkey,
Greece. On the ferry to Italy, a strange woman kissed him goodbye. Goodbye to
the old life.
Seventeen
years of small-Sicilian-village burrowing followed: singing American folksongs
in the schools, poetry, banjos and baseball, summers with brother Dave in
Colorado … and academics, about 50 scholarly articles published worldwide,
including the winner of the 1998 EdPress Award. Then more novels, song-writing, a fellowship to the Community of Writers, the
novel award at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.
Now
Martin enjoys section hiking the PCT, visiting his cousin at her Buddhist
retreat center, learning about everything, practicing pilates, and always writing:
musicals, haiku, flash fiction, poetry, what have you. He lives with his wife (the
esteemed sociologist, Daniela Catanoso) and dog, Kiki, in his dream home overlooking Scylla
and Charybdis (look it up). Martin even bought a new American house in Tracy CA,
halfway between the Sierras and the Bay. A self-starter, lazy hard-worker, committed
time-waster, Martin Pedersen’s still grumpy after all these years (he was told
to include that).