Dark Corner's Most Unforgettable Character

About 70 some-odd years ago there was a notorious couple that visited the Alberta Creek area on a regular basis. You may have heard of them, they were known as Bonnie and Clyde. They reportedly camped for about a week in the area that is now known as Washita Point Hide-a-Way. The late Ross McCorstin said that he saw them on more than one occasion at the rooster fights at (Old) Woodville.

Ross was the most unforgettable character I have ever met. There is hardly a day goes by that I don't think of something that Ross said. My brother, Wendyl, has for several years been in the process of compiling a book and including many of the sayings of Ross. If he included all of them it would be quite voluminous. Now I understand that Wendyl may name his book "Dark Corner and Beyond". You can take a kid out of Dark Corner, but I don't think you can ever take Dark Corner out of the heart of anyone raised there.

Well, that book is now in print (12-30-09) and it is "Dark Corner and Beyond". It is available at www.createspace.com/3400984 and it is filled with many more items about Ross McCorstin than what I have included in my tribute to Ross.

If the weatherman gave a 40 percent chance of rain, Ross would quip, "There's always a 50 percent chance, it either will or it won't." If someone said that they caught four inches of rain in their rain gauge, Ross would reply, "I caught two inches in an onion sack!"

Ross could have replaced Johnny Carson, David Letterman or Jay Leno and would have done a better job than any of them. He was quick witted and never at a loss for words. I spent many memorable hours in his company.

Wendyl and I hardly ever drove by his house that we didn't stop and drink a cup of coffee with him and Beth. Beth usually had a cake baking and Ross would offer us a piece of cake to go with our coffee. Invariably he would say, "You might as well eat it, because there's not enough left to take to the fair."

One night, about 1962, Wendyl had come home for the weekend and we called Ross. Ross said, "Come on down. I'll put a pot of coffee on and turn the hounds loose. They should have something going by the time you get here." Ross' hounds would run raccoon, fox, coyotes and bobcats. We soon arrived at Ross' house, which is now 2030 Alberta Creek Road, the third place on the south side of the road as you go east from Texoma Park Road.

We could hear the hounds trailing down on Alberta Creek, but they hadn't yet jumped whatever it was they were trailing. So we went in and drank a few cups of very black coffee. Ross always preferred his own coffee to what you get in cafes. He called café coffee "Sheep Dip". He said that it didn't take near as much water to make good coffee as what most folks used.

Ross, Wendyl and I walked east, down the Alberta Creek Road to listen to the hounds. We were just past Jones Creek Road when an old car with dim headlights approached us from the west. Ross hit Wendyl on the shoulder, shoving him into the ditch, exclaiming, get out the road, he'll run over you!"

He then jumped into the ditch too. Not fully understanding the situation, I too hit the ditch. When the car passed, we climbed out of the ditch. Ross, then, with the palm of his hand, hit Wendyl on the shoulder, shoving him into the ditch again. As he did so he said, "I'll be you give dollars that he runs off the road before he gets to the bottom of the hill!" Just as the old car got down about where Wildwood is now located, it ran off into the ditch on the south side of the road.

By this time Wendyl had climbed back out of the ditch and he was nearly doubled over with laughter. When he finally got his breath he asked, "How did you know he would run off the road?" Whereupon Ross, pushed Wendyl into the ditch for the third time as he replied, "Why, that's Tangle Eye Taylor, the only time he's in the road is when he's crossing it."

There wasn't anyone other than Moody McCuan, my grandfather, who did more to help my family than Ross McCorstin. When we moved into Kingston in 1949, Ross came and put running water in the house for us. That sure did beat drawing water from that old well where we lived when I was a child, nearly a mile east of the present Dark Corner General Store. When my oldest brother Richard started preaching he was asked to speak at the old Methodist Church at New Woodville. After the service ended Ross shook hands with Richard and slipped him a twenty dollar bill. That was a sizable amount at that time, but that was Ross.

There is an old well where Hoot & Katherine Gibson live which is just northeast of the Lighthouse Methodist Church on Alberta Creek Road. (Katharine was writing the "Texoma Fire District" news for The Madill Record and doing a very good job at the same time I was doing the Alberta Creek articles. She covered current news in the Alberta Creek Area, while I was digging up old bones.)

Many years ago and African American family, the Fishers, lived near where the Gibson's now have their palatial dwelling. Molly Fisher may have made the best biscuits ever eaten on planet earth. Ross said that many times, when he was a boy he would go squirrel hunting on Alberta Creek. If the wind was out of the south he could smell the smoke from the stovepipe that vented the cook stove of "Aunt Molly" which is what everyone called her. Ross would show up at her door just about the time he figured the biscuits were done. He would ask her if she wanted a couple of young squirrels and get a "Lordy me yes" reply. He would skin the squirrels, then go to the well and wash up, because he knew what was coming next. Aunt Molly would always offer him one of those big old biscuits, filled with real butter and homemade grape jelly. (Incidentally my wife Mary Loyce made grape jelly from wild grapes from that area in 2005 and it was scrumptious.)

As stated earlier, a book could be written containing the things that Ross said. However, of all the things he said, the one thing that stands out in my mind was one of the last thing I heard him say. I stopped by to see him on Wednesday night, before he had a heart attack and died on Friday. The news on the TV had something to do with a television evangelist. Ross said, "There's only one way to be saved, and that's to confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior."