Thank You God, And The Gators

"When Buddy Met Joni"

“To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think -- spend some time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that's a heck of a day.”

-Jim Valvano

She was gift from God, with an assist from Florida Gator football. It was early January in 1960 and I was about to eat a hamburger that would change my life forever. An attractive blonde was strolling by right in front of us.

My college roommate, P.K. Beck of Chiefland, always had an eye for beauty. He was the first to see her, walking north on 13th Street next to a swarthy, stout, and handsome guy, who looked like a football player. Turned out he was — and a very good one.

P. K. and I, members of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, were about to consume an early evening snack at the Humpty Dumpty drive-through restaurant when he looked up and said, “Hey! There’s Vic Miranda! Let’s go say hello to him.“

Also a Phi Delt, Vic was just returning from semester off. He was walking with an attractive 19-year-old former North Miami high school cheerleader whom he had volunteered to introduce around campus on her first week at the University of Florida.

I’d be lying if I said P.K. and I weren’t impressed with the striking beauty of the girl who later introduced herself as “Joan Sharp – no E.” But not knowing her relationship with Miranda just yet, we treaded cautiously. Vic could be intimidating. He not only looked like a tough guy, but was a sparring partner with a Miami Beach light heavyweight champion boxer named Willie Pastrano. Not to mention that he was an All-SEC guard on the Gator football team. But he was otherwise a real gentleman.

Fate dealt me a winning hand that night. It turned out to be more than just a fortuitous meeting, because God had already picked my mate for a lifetime.

They were headed down to a place called Gatorland and invited us to join them when we were done eating, which we would do. And that’s where we could clarify their connection. Turns out Vic and Joan Sharp “No E” were just high school acquaintances, not romantically connected.

Frankly, she was not all that impressed with me. And I – just coming off sort of a “torrid romance” myself – offered my services as hero to the damsel in distress, which of course she was not.

“I’ll be glad to take you over to our fraternity house and introduce you to some people,“ I said magnanimously.

It wasn’t love at first sight for either of us that night, but as a male student at a school where women were outnumbered 5-1 by guys, we always knew to dig in on the early freshman scouting report. I certainly made a mental note of it, even if I was slow to react.

A few days later, P.K.’s roving eye for beautiful ladies scored another bullseye. He spotted Joni again, walking across campus on the Plaza of Americas. He stopped to chat, remembering her name was Joan Sharp “No E,” and asked her, “What are you doing this weekend?“

Turns out she didn’t have a date on Saturday night, so he returned dutifully to inform me, his roommate. And since we were planning a bit of a party at our new apartment, maybe I should call her.

“I’ve got her number here,” he said. (Many have asked me why P.K. didn’t swoop down and ask her out. For one thing he already had a date. For another, he was all of about 5-8 1/2 and she was nearly 5-10. Too much woman for P.K.!)

We had a quiet, respectful evening at the apartment with our other roommate, Harry Lee Allen of Fort Myers and his date, and afterward I took her back to her dorm by midnight curfew. The next morning, Joni and I decided to go to church. It was a pleasant experience and I would ask her out again, but I was already dating another sorority girl in a much less promising relationship and would need to juggle some things.

That was the connection I made with a beautiful Joan Martin. From there, we dated often off and on for several weeks. And when she decided to go home to Miami for a weekend, she asked me,

“Are you going to have a date this weekend?” I confessed that I was.

To which she said’, “Do you have any money?”

I said, “no,” and she cheerfully whipped out a five-dollar bill and gave it to me, saying “Have a good time on me!”

She had me at, “Are you going to have a date this weekend?”

How could I not love her after that?

We were engaged at Christmas, married August 12 of the next year at Church By the Sea in Bal Harbor, had a daughter, Lori, 11 months later and set out on the challenging road that is marriage, without a game plan or road map for the next 60 years. We would blessed us with three more children: Christy (deceased), Rebecca and Brenden and countless adventures along the way.

It was on -the-job training, but when we finally got it right, through all the heartaches and hiccups, there was unmitigated joy and a rich life experience.

We learned so much from our mistakes and from each other over the 22,587 days we were married and even the 575 days before that.

It was no Harry Met Sally, but you could write a movie about When Buddy Met Joni. We often marveled at our adventure, the people we met, the places we lived, the lonely roads we walked together and her incredible courage to meet yet another challenge as she found a way make a house into a home everytime in a new place for a new job.

“Twenty-two times I moved!” she would say as a badge of courage, counting the in-town apartment changes. And all of them she converted to a home full of faith, love and hope, which became our mantra.

Finally we landed back in Ocala for the last 16 years where we flourished in each other’s company, even if it did sometimes test our patience during three years of Covid. We rode the wave of emotion as Gator fans and sometimes when I was away covering a crummy game she would change the channel in disgust.

Joni was always our magnet for joy, celebration and family blessings.

Ironically, she labored under the misconception that nobody valued her opinion. Yet she was always the secret rock star at our house. I would argue that she was one of the most influential people I ever knew. Not just in our family, where everyone sought her advice on everything from recipes to parenting to handling relationships, but many people from all walks of life – from the famous to the anonymous.

As a matter of fact, she was far more impactful than I was. As a commentator, broadcaster and author of eight books, I doubt hardly anybody could remember a single sentence of mine in well over a million words I’ve written or said.

Just about everybody recalls EVERY WORD of her advice, which was usually spot on.

Some of the things she said:

To Tom 1, who called her his “second mom”:

“That’s not the right girl for you.” She wasn’t and Tom 1 found the one who was.

To Tom 2, who often got befuddled and angry and would show up at the front door in bad need of a hug. “Sit down over here, Tom and listen. No. 1, you’re drinking too much. No. 2 you need to get your anger under control. And No. 3, that girl is no good for you.” Today, Tom says she was right about all three.

To her younger co-worker Venice Ann, from nearby Morrison, when they were 22 and working at an Ocala hair salon: “Bring your lipstick over here and let me show you something… Now, when you leave home every morning, always put on your face on.” (From Venice Ann: “For 60 years every morning I left the house, I remembered what she told me.”)

To Terry B, the big star: “Whenever I had the moments of uncertainty, you’re always the lady I could call. You’d encourage me and lift me up. And if I was wrong, you’d tell me, ’you’re wrong!’”

If you didn’t want the truth, don’t ask her. She took no prisoners. Believe me, I felt sting of her frankness many days as I walked out the door when she would say, “Those pants look terrible on you. Change them!”

I would grumble and complain about her criticism. Then I’d change them.

She was a truth-teller, as I found out early. Like the night we jumped in the the back seat of the getaway limo at Church by the Sea in North Miami after our wedding, traversing through the line of well-wishers. And as I pursed my lips to say something romantic – like,

“congratulations Mrs. Martin” – she blurted out: “DAMN, that RICE HURT!”

Reality over romance -- Joni Martin, keeping it real. Courageous enough to say what must be said and do what must be done to the point of personal sacrifice and pain.

Not many people know the story of our second-born, Christy, who had an anomaly of her heart and esophagus and spent the first six months of her life struggling to stay alive at Shands hospital in Gainesville. So many critical surgeries. During one of them, I took a walk to relieve my stress and wound up in the office of my good friend Ed Kensler, then the offensive coordinator for Ray Graves. I remember him being there when I so badly needed to talk.

I told him the story about Christy and his eyes began to well up. “It sort of makes first downs and touchdowns seem irrelevant,” he said. That began to change my perspective on football and life.

That was only the beginning of the story about Joni’s courage. She was trained at Shands on how to do a medical procedure on Christy that no doctor in all of Brevard County could do. So many days I watched her thread the catheter through Christy’s throat and out her side, and then go to the kitchen sink to wash the blood of her child from her hands. Christy died 18 months later. The pain was so great I could barely watch — let alone help. She hated admitting to a sense of relief, because she knew we’d see her again one day in heaven. We rarely talked about it over the next 50 years. Joni knew she had to move on, as she is no doubt telling her family today.

And you thought it took guts to play football?

She never backed down from anything. Including the night after we went the see Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway. Taking an elevator to the sixth floor for a dinner reservation, we had a last-minute passenger jump on board. He noticed a Playbill in Joni’s hand, commenting: “Oh, how did you like the play?”

To which she retorted: “It was OK, but I was a bit offended the way Jesus was depicted.”

"I’m sorry to hear that — I’m the producer of the show,” he said sheepishly, perhaps hoping she might amend her comment.

She didn’t flinch.

Then there was a time we contemplated moving back to Ocala from Denver to partner up with our friend who owned a radio station. We were getting really excited about it and the next night when we ran into said friend, he suddenly reneged on the deal and took it off the table.

Uncharacteristically of Joni, who rarely got into business negotiations unless asked, she stuck her finger in his face (she was also friends with him) and said, “You’re going to live to regret this someday!”

Two years later, when I moved back to Ocala and Gordon Smith and I started Florida Sports Talk, WMOP in Ocala/Gainesville, I ran into that friend on the boulevard and honked for him to pull over and mend our friendship. He looked me in the eye, shamefully admitting, “Joni was right.“

She was almost always right. Doesn’t sound to me like a person who’s opinions didn’t matter.

As poet Maya Angelou once said, ""People will forget everything you said or did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

One more thing to add about Joni — the word “Joy.” She danced with such joy! We clicked the first time on the floor. Our moves were pre-choreographed by fate. I remember the first real date we had at a fraternity party, once we got on the floor — she from Miami and me from Ocala — easily meshed our styles and cultures so beautifully through the language of the jitterbug.

Sometimes there would be a house full of people at the Phi Delta Theta house — maybe a couple of hundred people — along with our friends Lynn and Ed Seay. We would almost clear the floor.

She had me at the first twirl and the magic of those nimble, high-stepping feet. Honestly, I felt like we were Marge and Gower Champion with the spotlight on us. People just backed off to watch these two couples dancing on the floor. Everything she did in that regard brought such great joy to her and those in our circle of life.

So that’s the word I don’t want forget about her — Joy. She loved Everything Jesus — especially Christmas and Easter. And reading her Bible and devouring books – she read over a thousand books. It was a perfect day when she could read scripture, read her books on Kindle, watch her birds flitting out her sliding glass back door, say her prayers and talk to one or more of her family members. Then she would tell me what a wonderful life we had lived for over a half century.

She was a celebrating kind of girl — birthdays and anniversaries, holidays. At Christmas, her house was magically transformed into a wonderland with boxes and boxes of ornaments hanging on the prettiest tree in three counties … nutcrackers and figurines and the manger scene … wreaths and bows of her making and a pot of her famous chili for the traditional Christmas Eve gathering.

If it was the day of your birthday in our family, you’d most likely have “Happy Birthday” sung by her first thing that morning.

She loved movies and was addicted to Broadway plays – probably saw 30 of them, including The King as I (Yul Brenner), Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago and Wicked. But one of her favorite moments was during the play Peter Pan, when Sandy Duncan came flying down from the roof as our son Brenden, then five, looked up in wonderment and said “Mom, I think that’s a real person!!!”

Her favorite movies were Out of Africa with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, Dances With Wolves with Kevin Costner and probably Funny Girl with her beloved Barbra Streisand, whose singing voice she so coveted that she prayed God might grant it to her in heaven once she transcended that stairway.

She kept talking about her vision of a long stairway into the sky. “I see myself climbing that stairway and as I get to the top, somebody pokes their head through the pearly gates and says, ‘Go back! We’re not ready for you yet.’ I know that one day I’ll get there and Jesus will extend his hand to me and say, ‘Come on in!’’’

On Thursday June 15, she took his hand.

Play video at 103:15 for Joni Tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5xgV0GLaEg