Chapter Sixty One. Scoville

Scoville

Justin Scoville was intense. At 66 you may have mistook his body for an athlete's of 45. He had a full head of hair, not white, but light, still showing remnants of his blonde hair he had since childhood.

When he looked at you, you felt the piercing energy of his great intellect. But there was more than just intelligence in his eyes, there was a connection to the infinite. When Justin Scoville looked at you, you either surrendered or rebelled. And if you rebelled, you knew your time was limited.

Of those who surrendered, no one ever got in. He would trap everyone in the outer fringes of his personality, compliant to his needs and satisfying them with scraps of charity, but never allowing them to touch his feelings or to know the contents of his heart.

Born Justin Bryce Scoville to Anita and Jonathan Boyce Scoville, and raised in Topeka, Kansas. His father was a carpenter who seldom talked about his experiences, especially of World War II, when he flew P50's and P41's as a fighter pilot. Justin never really got to know his father but he studied him like a chemistry equation.

Justin's mother was a farm girl, Anita Dunhaven, who fell in love with his father when she was 14. She knew Jonathan Scoville since she was a little girl. It seemed everyone knew everyone in Topeka in 1938, the year Jonathan entered her life. She was nine. He was 17 and would have been a senior at Topeka High, except he finished the academic requirements of graduation by the time he was 15. When he was 17 he opened Lime Rite, a small lemonade and limeade shop in old man Stellar's drug store, on the corner of 5th and Persimmons.

Anita will never lose that movie in her head of Jonathan Scoville squeezing those lemons (five large or six medium) and mashing the pulp with the sugar. He made an art form of it. All the kids in town would lay out their nickels for one of Jonathan's fresh lemon or limeades.

Anita's sister Sally furnished the love connection to "Jon." It was when she was 17 and Jon was 22.  He was back from the war, a hero. Anita was 14. Jon came over to pick up Sally for a date in a shiny 1939 Nash. Seemed to be a stretch limo to Anita. She hadn't understood that Jon, the war hero...the fighter pilot back from China, after being shot down twice and being declared dead by the newspapers, was Jon the lemonade God from Stellar's Drug.

She watched from the window as he jumped from the Nash and threw on his suit coat. He didn't put his arms in the jacket.  He just wore it on his shoulders. With one hand he held the jacket closed and with his other hand he adjusted the brim of his Fedora. He stood crossed armed, a cigarette burning between the fingers of his right hand, and the sleeves of his coat hanging down, like a Hollywood tycoon. "Yes," she thought right then from the window. "This is the man I'll marry."

Justin adored his father, though he never got much attention from him. His father was a symbol of strength and virtue to him, regardless that many people thought Jonathan Scoville was a bitter, mean, and angry man, with an oversized ego and an undersized heart. What Justin learned from Jonathan was how to keep the upper hand in any deal, business or personal. "Always take the first punch son," was his father's advice. "Hit 'em hard, and between the eyes. You don't want them to get back up."

Justin was a popular boy in school. He learned to get along with all the distinct groups of kids at Topeka High. There were the athletes who hung out with the girls in the pep squad and cheerleaders. That group were the "jocks." There were the black leather jacket bunch, known for taking shop class, getting in fights and slicking their hair back. Those were "greasers." There was the hippie types that smoked dope and took acid and danced around spaced out in the Lyndon Park on Sundays in their bright colored bell bottoms and layered dresses and flowers in their hair. They were "freaks." Then there were scattered others, not strictly categorized, like the intellectuals (national honor society types), the nerds (shirt pocket protectors, thick glasses), farm kids (red necks) and momma's boys and girls (goodie-goodies).

Justin Scoville was a chameleon, changing his colors, however it would enable him to get the girl or the award that attracted his attention. Known as a dancer and a class clown, he was easily picked out in the crowd by the twinkle in his eye.

His nonchalance, happy-go-lucky attitude changed after he returned from his three years in the US Army. He came back to Topeka, determined to earn his fortune.