1950s
The Old House
The old home place was on Farr's Bridge Road about a half mile from Holder's Ford across Town Creek. It was built in the 1940s by grandaunt Nora Cauley, grandmother Hughes' sister. Dad and Mom bought the house after Nora moved to Greenville.
The road had banks on either side near the house, the driveway was an incline up between two trees. The front yard was dirt which got swept occassionaly instead of grass that got cut. There were hedges on one side along the bank, big enough for me to climb around in, to sit there above the road. Another hedge ran down one side toward the old garage. The well was between the house and the road.
The house was an "L" shape wooden frame with white board siding and a tin roof. The porch was "L" shaped too, in front of the kitchen door and along side one of the bedrooms. There was a really huge Oak tree at the corner next to the bedroom end. The house had a back porch too, but that got closed in to make a third bedroom. It was just a three room house, kitchen and two bedrooms. The addition made it a four room house, with an indoor bathroom then.
The front door opened into the kitchen. The couch was on the left and washing machine on the right. The table was in the middle right part of the kitchen and the sink and stove on the oppsite side. The refigrator and cabinet was along the wall opposite the heater and TV. The back door was just across from the front door and a closet was in one corner behind the TV. A short hall way lead to the bedrooms. There's was a medicine cabinet and old clock on the hall wall.
The first bedroom was where grandma Hughes lived. There was a wood/coal heater in that room with her rocking chair beside it. There was a set of drawers with a mirror next to the chair, it had the other clock on it. A window looked out across the side yard toward the swing set and two Black Walnut trees and the house where grandparent Hayes's lived. The Parrots lived there after grandmother Hayes died in 1952. Grandma Hughes's bed was in one corner, then a door to Daniel and Joel's bedroom. The piano was against the wall between the other big bedroom next to the other door to that room. The telephone was on an end table near the door back into the kitchen.
The other big bedroom was were Dad and Mom, Robert and I slept. It had a closet cabnet built along one wall. Dad and Mom's bed was in one corner, Robert's desk in the corner with the window looking out the front porch. The was twin beds for Robert and me, mine was in the other corner.
The back bedroom, Daniel's and Joel's room, was long and narrow since it use to be the back porch. Their beds was at one end, one of them had to crawl across the other's bed. The new bathroom was at the other end of the room.
All the rooms had beaded board sides and ceiling. The orginal bedrooms had the old fashion high ceilings too.
July 1960
The day Grandma Hughes died
She had been really ill for several weeks, I guess, and in the old Cannon Hospital uptown for a week or so. Someone had to stay there with her, that was when family's use to do more at the hospitals. Robert seem to stay there, so did the others too, they probably took turns. It was one of those all night things too.
And there was a lady neighbor who lived down at the highway end of the road, she stayed there too. She was up there the day Grandma Hughes died. I recall her telling how she knew something was about to happen but I dont remember the details. She called the nurses and then it was all over.
I was over at the Cater's house, my friend Jamie was up from Georgia that Summer too, staying at his Grandparent's house. We were out back of their house, it was a dirty yard like most homes back then, some old big trees out back too. Joel comes around the corner with Mrs Cater, she's saying something about "It's the Lord's will." I really dont think I understood right then. Joel tells me to come back home and "Dont go in a hollowing." We walk back around the Cater's house and across the road into our house.
It's already full of people, neighbors, friends, family. I wander around a bit, may have gone into the other rooms too, then back into the kitchen. Dad was standing there. "Did Grandma die?" He said, "Yes, Grandma's dead," then hugs me and cried some. I probably cried then too. The other people were sitting around, talking, visiting, telling stories and all. Least that's what I remember. It may have been then, or maybe a different time. There was some mention about the Hughes history, it concerned Lulu and an uncle - aunt marriage. But I was just a kid and didn't know anything about genealogy then. Then, later in 1968 or '69 there was that family reunion over at Parris Mountain where one of the grandaunts tries telling me about who Toliver's parents were and who Sally Hughes's parents were, both named Joel. Or was it just one and the same? Anyway, that's a different random ressurrected rememberance.
That evening I went out and climbed up in one of the trees beside the driveway and next to the road. I was just sitting up there, thinking, looking around. Jamie came over, or he was already there, I dont remember. He climb part way up and asked if I was ok. I guess I just said yeah. Dont remember how long I was up that tree that night, probably not long though.
At the funeral, it was in the old Clayton - Dillard funeral home below the hospital, I was sitting there with Dad and Mom and the family. I guess we had just went by the casket and sat back down and the preaching had started. I start crying. I learned later that my friend Jamie, he was there to, he started crying too cause I was.
Aunt Nora was there too, she was Grandma's sister, and the last of that Cauley family. I remember seeing her standing there at the casket. Of course there were lots of other family there too.
We rode down to Easley, it was a two lane road then, to the cemetary by the railroad tracks. I cant think of anything special then, just the graveside part of the funeral. It was later that year or maybe another year. Dad and Uncle Addison went down there to tend to the graves. Uncle Addison was working on the next site, I asked Dad who's was that one. He said it was his parents graves. I still didnt make the connection about it being my great grandparents. Still a naive child then even though I was 12 or so.
Dad never did have the death date put on Grandma Hughes' gravestone. I've been there off and on over the years. I still see that and think I need to have that done. But I dont. I did stop by one of the monument places a few years ago just to see how much it would cost, $75 or $100 dollars. Too many years have passed by and now it has a history of its own. It's become a decision over whether to let it be as it has been or put the date on the stone and change the history.
Family 1950s and 1960s
Reunions
Seems like most of the reunions were at Parris Mountain over north of Greenville. I dont know why there, except that it was a State Park and nice place to have one. And then there was probably more family over in that direction than in Pickens County. Some of them traveled up from Gray Court, Clinton and Spartanburg too.
They were the usual fare, kids running around playing games and in the creek. Picnic tables of food, everyone brought enough food to feed their own family and then another family or two it seems. The grownups were all talking about whatever the news of the times was, and family too I guess. The teens were playing teenage games too I suppose. But I wasnt much part of that then.
The other places where reunions were held was at people's homes and farms. I remember one, but dont know which one, the place had a pond I think. It was out back of the house too, that's where most reunions like that are, in the backyard. But it's the event that happened there that I remember.
Everyone was roaming around, standing around, talking and laughing, kids playing. Then it started to get quiet, the noise just faded away and was replaced with a singing voice. All the noise stopped and there was only just the voice of one child singing a song. It was Rennie, I think that's the name, the son of one of Dad's cousin. He would have been 10 or so. I dont really remember if I walked over to see or not, I either did or was told about it. There stood Rennie, with one of the older family members sitting on a picnic table bench, singing. He really didn't want to sing in front of all those people but was told to. He finished that song but I dont think he sang another one. I just dont remember.
It was kinda of a "laying on of hands" thing, that connection between generations, from old to young and back again. Later on, during his teen years he was asked to sing lots of places, mostly church gatherings I guess. It was also during his teen years, 18 or 19 I think, he died. It was some disease and not an accident. His mother was visiting Mom sometime back, after Dad had died too I think. She told some about that reunion, even gave me some of his shirts. I may still have them stashed away in one of the boxes, maybe not, I've tossed a burned lots of stuff over the years. I just don't know.
Food
There was lots more visiting back then, trips to Greenville to see the Barrons and Aunt Nora Cauley. Trips to Gray Court and Clinton. Trips to whereever family was.
It was pack up Sunday dinner (lunch type dinner, supper was always the evening meal) and go some where. Well first it was get all the food cooked before Sunday school and church, then leave after church. Yeast rolls come to mind, Mom would fix them and then they would get put in the car where it was hot under the sun for rising. And then there's no telling how much chicken, ham, roasts, potato salad, rice and everything else that had been fixed over the years. Packed in bowls, put in the trunk, or held, for the trip to where ever it was we were going.
It was some time when I was working at Singer that one of the men there said it right. Don't know how we came about talking about food, maybe it was after one of the old fashion, make your own charchol, barbaque, get togethers. But anyway we were talking about how good the food tasted, he said it was truly blessed. I suppose that was way all the family reunions and get-togetehers food tasted better too, there was always a blessing given before eating.
At the old house, we were having a cookout. It was during the evening, out back and after dark too it feels like. Uncle Elbert was standing and walking around while holding his plate and eating. I asked what dont you sit down? He said you can eat more standing up.
Sometimes, not only for get-togethers but for Saturday night supper, the food came from some resturarant, drive-in actually. Hamburger steak dinners from the Do-nut Place, or Triangle Drive-in, or Blue Flame, or Lot-a-burger. Hamburger, fries, cole slaw, milk-shake all from the 50s and 60s. It was much better eating then than now. I guess even the store bought food was blessed back then too.
Visiting
One of the Sunday afternoon visiting trips, somewhere in Spartanburg County or Laurens, was to a farm. It was a two story house, wood frame old style box farm house, with a well out back and a pear tree. I wish I could remember things better, like whose place it was. I do remember Dad and us boys went for a walk down a dirt road there, probably to a pond. And that's all I remember about it.
There were lots of trips to the Barron and Aunt Nora Cauley's place in Greenville. They had a boxer dog, brown hair, named Lady. To get there we drove behind one of the mills, along the railroad tracks that pass over the Farr's Bridge road beside the mill. That way is blocked now. But it's was the train whistles in the evening that I remember. And Aunt Nora's bottle Dr Pepper. That's what I use to associate with Dr Pepper, drinking them there at their place.
There were two places outside where we'd sit around, the front porch and out back around the picnic table. I cant remember anything special about them, it's just were the visitors would gather.
Brothers
Bros
It was told that when I was still a baby, old enough to sit up at least, my bros would put me on top of a square table, the black one with thin round legs. It belonged to Grandma Hughes I guess. It also had a cloth cover over it. One day Mom heard a loud thump and then me crying. She went into the big room to see what was happening. My bros were playing a game, "sit the baby on the table, then pull on the cloth till the baby fell."
Robert had Dad's old desk, the one he used when he was young, the one with the fold-down top. It sat in the corner of his, mine, Dad and Mom's room, in front of the windows at the front porch. He was sitting at it, doing whatever big bros do at desks. One of the things Robert did at that desk was make index card files. He had one about the solar system. Occassionally he would turn and stare at me. Got me all upset, "Dont look at me." Mom would hear all the fuss and come in from the kitchen. She counted steps one time, just to let us know how many steps were wasted 'cause of our squabbling.
There was, still is, a huge oak tree at the corner of the porch at the old house. We use to toss a rope over one of the limbs and swing from one edge of the porch, around the tree, to the other edge.
One Summer when Jamie was up visiting, we were hanging around the porch, Joel was there too. "Juvenile Deliquent" seem to the buzz words then, Joel was calling us JDs. "JD" ended up being Joel's name when he worked for the DC police and Sheriff's department too.
It was the 50s, teens, rock-n-roll, 45s, record players, drive-in hangouts. I wasnt a teen then but might as well have been, tagging along with the older brothers and their friends most of the time. Daniel and Joel's room, the one that use to be the back porch, was the hangout room for their friends when they came over. We got a small table-top pool table once, but the room was so narrow it was hard to play some shots, the cuestick would bump into the walls. They collected 45s, like every other teen then, there's three boxes of the old records in the hall closet over at Mom's house. It's been a really long time since any of them have been played. Every few years or so, there'd be some reason to look through them, trying to remember an old song and who sang it. But mostly they've just been sitting in that closet for 30 years.
The backyard was big. The backyard of the Parrot's place was just a big. Together it was a really big backyard. Football field size. That was what the game was most of the time with the big kids. And baseball when that time of year came around.
Besides ball games, there was Joel's interest in photography when he was in high school. He would make trick pictures, me standing on Robert's hand. And then there were the pyrimads where all the older kids would stand on each other's backs and shoulders.
We had two black kettles, one had a chip in the rim, the last place I remember seeing them was at the old Do-Nut Shop, Looper's Antiques, after we moved to the new house on the ridge. On one of the hiking trips to the swamp behind Runnymede, we found a large turtle. The bros and their friends eventually fished it out from the water. They carried it all the way back home, I guess they had already decided what to do with it. They played with it in the back yard, watched it crawl around, poked at it. They got the fire started and the water boiling in the meanwhile. Then they just dropped it in the hot water. I just stood around and watch them all. Seems like I felt really bad about killing it like that. Dont even think they did anything else with it afterwards, just tossed it away. I dont even remember the shell being kept, it may have been. Of course doing that today would get us all tossed in jail, fined and doing community service.
Every time I think of those two black kettles I want to try and find out where they ended up. They're probably still in Pickens County, in someone else backyard, with flowers growing in them.
All my brothers were in the Boy Scouts. The troop they were in had the hut in the baseball field next to Pickens Mill. You could see it from the backyard. They went to Camp Old Indian too, spend a week with other kids out in the woods, doing cool stuff. Basket weaving was one of the crafts. The ones they made stayed up in the attic for a long time. They got to go on camping trips too, I guess. But by the time I was old enough, they disbanded that troop. Mr Gantt's troop 51 up town and on blacksnake road was getting all the kids, that was the troop to be in.
Best Friend Bro
Another one of the things Jamie did for play was telegraph, sort-of. There was two trees on either side of the driveway going up into the front yard. I would climb up in one of them a lot. Over in the Cater's yard was a couple of big Magnoila trees. We got the idea of stringing a wire from my tree to one his trees, that would have been across the road and most of the Cater's front yard, couple hundred feet I guess. We would take turns pulling on the wire to make it bob up and down, morse code signals, slow pulls and short quick pulls.
Barrel rolling. Dad kept a couple of 55 gallon steel barrels, for burning trash in I guess. One of the things we did with them was to balance on top and walk them around. Jamie and I got them behind the Cater's house, there was a hill there and lots of weeds. We would roll them around mashing them all down. Of course the other thing, especially the older kids, would be to get inside while the others rolled them around. Dont remember if they ever took them out to find some really steep hills to roll down. Probably did. "Aint is a wonder any of live to grow old."
My other best friend then was Del, he lived next door, on the other side of the field in front of the electricity sub-station. We'd play all the usual games, baseball, soldiers, tag, kick-can, hide and seek, and just play with the dirt and rocks. There was another kind of game and I cant remember what we called it. Robert, Del, me and someone else was playing it once, two on each side. It was a charade kinda of game where you had to make signs and gestures while the other side tried to guess what it was. If you guessed right, then you had to tag them before they got back to their goal. Robert and Del came up with one. Me and the other friend were trying to guess it. We did actually, but it was so simple, we didnt realize it. "Stop ahead."
The Side Yard
The picnic table and old pipe swingset that Dad made were there most of the times. They'd get moved around some, but that was the general area. There were two black walnut trees in the yard too, next to the old Hayes place. My cousins, Linda and Kathy use to hang around there some, sitting and playing on the table and in the trees. I guess there was a rope swing in one of them trees too. Seems like we'd just sit around and talk mostly, or some kind of role playing games.
One Summer the new game for the older kids was to put the table near the swing, jump from the table top and grab hold of the cross bar on the swing. It looked like fun and I did it too. You could swing up parallel to the cross bar if you jumped hard enough. I did that too. Lost my grip once, landed on my butt, must have try bracing myself for the hit with my hands too. It scared me, but I got up. Then I see the crook in the arm near my left wrist, weird looking and feeling seeing your arm out of shape. I went up the back steps into the kitchen where Mom was, Daniel was there too, he was studying. He looks up and sees me come in holding my arm and says, "Let's go." I think it took a few seconds before Mom realized what was going on. We went up to the hospital, Dr Hardin was the family doctor. All the usuall stuff was done, waiting, x-rays. I hadnt cried yet, didn't till Dr Hardin got ready to re-set the bone. Probably wouldn't have cried then if he hadn't stuck me in my broken arm with a needle, but that's what he did and that's what I did, started bawling like a scared baby. He re-set the bone and had to wait for more x-rays, then he had to do some more adjusting. He grabbed ahold of my arm and jerked it about three times, all the while trying to do it when I wasn't expecting it. Then he put the cast on, I put sand down to stop the itching, then a few weeks later had to go back and have it cut off. He stuck me with a needle last time and now he had this little circular saw and was going cut it off. "Aint it a wonder any of us live to grow old."
The Northen Lights were really active on time during the 50s. I remember going out in the side yard near the rose bushes next to the corner with the Parrot house. They was streeks in the night sky. They were probably other things like that, mostly eclipses. Probably the beginnings of my interest in astronomy, space and nights.
We use to cut grass with one of them roller type blade cutters, the kind with the spiral blades and cutting edge. The one year Dad got a power mower. We had to go all over the yard picking up stones and rocks. The brothers did most of the grass cutting then, I guess I got to push it around some too.
One winter, before I started school, it snowed and stayed cold a lot. I'd was my brothers go off down the road, walking to school. I have to stay at home, thinking I was missing out on all the fun stuff. Anyway, it was cold and there was snow on the ground. It was hard enough and I was lite enough to walk on top of it without breaking through.
There were lots of snow days back then. The Cater kids built a really big, one snowball snowman once. I guess we built our share in the side yard and back yard too. But it seems like there was more tagging along after the brothers and their friends more than anything else.
Stuff
Kids and matches. What is about fire that kids have to go fooling around with it? I was in the garage where Dad kept lots of the really old stuff, the lathe from the time he had his own business was there. They was sacks of fertilizer and seed too in one corner next to the opening. I just had to see if the burlap would burn. I just had to see how long I could let it go without getting really big. It caused enough smoke for the Cater's to see from their place, up the side yard, across the road and their yard. I probably got my butt whooped over that, but I dont remember it.
The high school football field wasnt but a mile or so away, close enough to hear all the noise on game nights. There was a few times that I'd be left with Grandma. She would rub my back and I'd hear all the football crowd noise.
I did get to go to some games. It was mostly just sit with Dad while the bros got to run around. I guess Daniel was playing then, or in the band, he did both. There was one night it rained. Robert ran around with his friends and got all soaking wet. Dad kept us dry with some kind of cover, plastic or raincoats. He made a point of that to Robert when it was time to leave. I think that may have been during the early 60s instead of the 50s.
There's a branch behind the houses on north side of the road we lived on. It had a flat area next to it in one area, and then the hill up to the back of the houses. There was one tree on the bank next to the flat. Flat open area, bank, tree with high limbs ... rope swing. The bros had to use their bow and arrows to get a line over the limb and then pull the rope over. It was probable be best rope swing ever. Long, wide, circle ride from one side of the tree to the other over the flat area.
The bros and their friends had started smoking cigarettes, we'd had been smoking rabbit tobbacco in pipes forever. I had to try that too. They gave me one and I lite it. They laughed. I lite the filered end. One of them put it out and fixed it and gave it back already lite. I did everything backwards, smoked pipes before starting cigars and then I started cigarettes in '67.
Seems like I was with a couple of friends, maybe just one, either Stanley, Gary, or Del. It was winter time and we were old enough to wander around the woods on our own, if you want to call 10 old enough, it was back then anyway. We were down in that flat area next to the branch, we may have been farther away from home and on our way back, or that is as far as we got. But it was the biggest snow flakes I remember, clusters as big as the palm of your hand. And that was under the trees. I must have be reall thick with snow out in the open, but it seems like it quit before we got out of the woods.
Behind one of the house out toward the highway, there were apple trees. It had the biggest, green apples one year. We shot a few down with arrows or threw rocks at them. I guess they were too high and far out on limbs to climb up to them. I took mine back home and showed it to Mr Parrott, he said something about setting it in a window and let it mellow. But I guess I was a kid and wanted that green apple right then. Wonder how many green apples kids eat?
Grandma Hughes sold greeting cards, she sold thread and other things too. Actually she would take orders from the neighbors and other people and get them from some mail-order company. I use to do the running around for her. Go to the different homes to deliver the stuff.
Joel use to work at the Lotta-Burger out on the highway across from the Blume Flame Drive-in. He was the curb-boy, that was when people would stay in their cars, someone would come out and get the orders, and then bring out the food, along with a tray that sat on the window. I use to go out there too, walk out the road and across the highway.
There was this thing about gumball machines too. They had bigger ones in with all the regular size ones. If you got one of them, you'd get a candybar. One time I got hold of lots of pennies, seems like I got them out of Mom's purse I guess, and went off to the Lotta-Burger. Sat there in front of the gumball machine and fed it pennies, getting a big ball, getting a candybar. Some lady stood behind the counter and watched. Don't really know what she thought about it, 'cept seeing some greedy kid get nickle candybars for a penny. I had a bag full when I left. Then as I was walking back home I got to thinking about how was I going explain how I came by all of them and where the pennies came from. I think I hid them somewhere along the way, maybe even threw some of them away. That didn't make much difference though, Dad, Mom and everyone else found out anyway.
Just above Holder's Bridge, where Farr's Bridge Road crosses Town Creek, there's a huge boulder in the water. It has an iron spike in it. That use to be where the original ford was. There's a small cliff overhang there too. It's one of the place the bros and I use to go to. Mom took me down there once. She sat on the boulder while I played in the creek.
There was one time the bros and their friends were playing around that part of the creek, there and down toward the bridge next to Deihl. One of the friends got bit by a snake, don't know what kind. Daniel makes a turnique and they all start toward town and the hosiptal. Some lady that lived near there saw it all and called Mom. She takes off running toward the creek. Joel learnt that Mom had been called and he takes off running back toward home. He was shouting about it not being one of them.
Kitchen
The kitchen table sat in the middle of one end of the kitchen. The sink and stove was along the west wall. There was a wall cabinet above the sink too. The refigerator and cabinets were on the north wall. The washing machine, the new electric one, was on the east wall next to the front door. The couch was on the other side of the door near the hall to Grandma Hughes' room. The medicine cabinet and old wall clock was on the other wall in that hall. The oil heater was on the south wall in front of the closed up fireplace. The closet was in the southwest corner. The TV sat in that corner too. There were a couple of chairs in front of the heater and TV, one was the old recliner that's in Mom's room now, it use to be in den for a long time.
There is a cooking pot, Mom still uses it, it's bottom is warped out now too and doesn't sit flat. She was getting ready to cook some beans one time a long time ago. Somehow I had gotten up on the table, I dont think it would have been the stove but I guess it could have been. What does a crawling around baby do with a pot of beans? Sits in it.
In the cabinet above the sink was Dad's straight razor. I got it out one time and was sitting on the kitchen table. Just kind-a holding it, opening and closing it. It got me. Cut my thumb if I remember right, trying to feel how sharp it was. I learned. Seems like there was visitors that day too, they were out on the front porch.
Oh cold winter mornings, before school started, it was get out of bed, wrapped up in a blanket and wander from the bedroom into the kitchen next to the heater. Sit there and try to wake up and keep warm. Watch early morning cartoons, Terry Terrific was one of them. They had serial stories on cartoons then too. One was about some wise owl and one segement was about it being tossed into a den of lions, along with some other character who was up in a tree playing a violin, I guess. One of the lion comes over to stop all the noise the owl was making with the ball and chain. It looked like he was going to be eaten, but all the lion did was break off the chain. They didnt want the music to be disturbed.
There were other early morning shows that had serial stories. Some of them came on kinda late for school mornings. Mom and the brothers would always be after me to hurry up and get ready to leave for school. But I just had to see what happened next in the stories.
It was the Christmas we had the small, artificial silver tree. It stayed in Daniel and Joel's room most of the time. It was where we put all the presents around till Christmas morning. That was one of the colder Christmas' too, and the heat was in the kitchen. Dad and Mom had gotten up early, or maybe stayed up late, and decided it would be better to have Christmas morning in the warm kitchen. They were quiet about most of it. Till Dad dropped the tree. I think Mom says he cried about that.
Seems like most Christmas' the tree was in Grandma Hughes' room, next to the window on the west wall. They was a both a coal heater and oil heater in that room at different times. It's strange, though, I cant seem to visualize Grandma on Christmas mornings. Just her sitting in her rocking chair with her forehead propted in one hand most of the other times of the year.
Vacations and Trips
The first vacation, well I dont know, one of the earliest vacations I remember was the mountain trip up into North Carolina and Virginia. We went to Blowing Rock, Pisgah Forest, Mount Mitchell, Grandfather Mountain, Laura Caverns, Shennehdoa Valley.
Mount Mitchell I remember, it was a long dirt path from the gravel parking lot up to the top. It was up in the clouds too. Grandfather Mountain had the swinging bridge, and gift shop but I've got missed images of that from all the later trips. Natural bridge too, we went there.
I think we went to Charleston once before we started going to Myrtle Beach, but we did come back through Charleston once too so it may have been the same trip. It's the boat ride out to Fort Sumter that I remember.
We went up to Fontana Dam after one of the trips to the beach. That wasn't too long after they built the dam and lake. I remember the curving road as it followed along the lake, and there's some images of the dam too.
The Myrtle Beach trips, three Summers in August usually, are what I think of as vacations during the '50s.
Mom was working 2nd shift then, from 4 to midnight, we'd leave sometime about one o'clock in the morning after she got off work. I remember being over at Runneymede with Dad one time during the evening before we left. He was probably fixing something on the roof luggage rack or something. He would get the car packed during the evenings while Mom worked.
We'd drive all night, of course, down US 276 through all the small towns to Columbia. Then zig-zag through the big city onto to US 378 down past Fort Jackson and onto Sumter and Conway. We'd know we were almost there when we got on that long straight stretch of road between Conway and Myrtle Beach.
Murphy's Motel, I'm almost sure that was the name, was the place we stayed, at least a couple of times if not all three times we went. Us kids would want to go on to the beach, Dad and Mom would be tired and want to rest. I guess we went on to the beach anyway, we'd get there about six o'clock but couldn't get into the room till after eleven or two maybe.
Breakfast was at the restuarant next to the putt-putt golf course next to the pavilion. The road just lead straight to that place on the beach. It was really something for me, to be eating at a restuarant like that, it was what only the rich people could do most of the time. The small packets of jelly, pads of butter you had to spread yourself on toast, it was all fancy stuff to me.
Back then you packed and took your own food for the vacation. It was cheaper that way.
Canvas rafts was the way most people played in the waves. We rented them the first year, bought our own the next year. We'd rent an umbrella too, and borrowed one once. It was usually near one of the piers where we'd sent up on the beach. Dad got sun-burned easily and had to stay in the shade.
We went down to Brookgreen Gardens every year too. That was a long ride down US 17 through the country then, not anymore, it's all vacation city traffic down that way now. It's the horses at the entrance that I remember along with all the other statues. The rest of the gardens were just plants, flowers and trees.
It may have been the second or third vacation there when I had to wear a tight wrap around my right leg. There was a lump on it and Dr Harden cut it out. I didnt like having to look different from the other kids on the beach.
I was standing in the shallow waves once, it wasn't very deep and I thought I was safe from the big ones. I had my back to the ocean when I got knocked to the sand and covered by one. That scared me.
Always had to get out on the beach and spend all day there. Did that the first day once, probably all the times we went, but I got really blistered that time. Spent the rest of the vacation staying out of the sun, in the motel laying on my stomach because my back was burnt, sitting on the benches around the rides across from the pavilion, getting looked at by everyone. I must have been red as a lobster.
That was when the pavilion had the mechanical organ. It had all the figures playing the tunes, and people would sit on the chairs and benches in front of it.
I guess it was on the camping trip down to Lakewood Campgrounds during the late '60s. It was after Dad and I started to fly in airplanes. Anyway, we did a ride up and down the beach once.
I really don't know what my bros did at the beach. Went to the teen dance place above the pavilion game room I guess. Or just wander around in town. They were teens then so they did whatever teens were doing in the '50s. I just know I got left out on lots of the fun stuff.
On one of the trips back from the beach, it was at one of the small towns on US 276, we stopped for gas at some country store. The man there kinda looked at me and asked if I liked trains. I think Dad had gotten us our own train set then too. So he takes us into some part of the store, or maybe it was another building. He had a really big collection of model trains. It may have been after that that Dad and the older brothers put up our trains in the old feed building next to the big oak tree and chicken coop.
School
Pickens Mill Elementary, the little red brick school house below Pickens Mill, had a huge oak tree on the south side, outside the first grade room and lunch room. There was a branch along the east side and a kudza patch on the other side of it. The playground was on those two sides. The merry-go-round and swings were near the branch. On the north side was the garage next to the audiotorium end of the building. School House Street ran on the front side. The boys bathroom was next to the backdoor, across a short hall from the auditorium. It had one of those long troughs for the urnial and a couple of stalls for the toliet. The library was book shelves in the wide hall next to the first grade room. There were radiators for heat in the halls and rooms. Before there were lockers, there were hooks on the hall walls where the kids hung up their coats. There was a shelve about the coat hooks for the books.
First grade was Mrs Baker's class, she taught Dad and all us boys. I was out pulling on one of the low limbs of the big oak tree. She came over and told me about how that tree was little when she started teaching. Also told me to stop trying to break the limb. The big, old, oak tree got cut down when they built the new cafeteria building, that was during the '70s I think.
We had to sit in circles and read in her class. It was my turn to read and I got all furstrated and started to cry. She sent me out back with Sandra, she was a neighbor who lived on Runneymede Road. That helped me to stop crying, but I still don't think I did well doing stuff in front of all the other kids. Mom would have to come and get me to take me back home to eat lunch too. Don't remember how long all that went on. It took me a while to get use to going to school.
Mrs Ruby Smith was the second grade teacher. She kept interesting stuff in her room. There was an owl once and we'd have to feed it. Field trips back then was a walk around the streets near the school, up Schoolhouse to Overbrook to Planer and then back along the short street to the school. It was the big trees along that short street that I remember. Picking up leaves during the fall, and then tracing or making crayon rubbings of them in class.
Mrs Dennis was the teacher in third grade. Her son Dean was one of my friends. Homemade go-carts was the in thing for boys then. He had made his own. They lived off of East Cedar Rock street across from City Cemetery. I went over there once and we rode his cart down that hill. I was doing something in class I wasn't suppose to be doing, whatever it was I got slapped on the back of the hand for it. I guess if I had been in one of the upper grades it would have been a real paddleing. It must have been the first of that grade year that I was wearing the cast after breaking my arm that summer.
In the fourth grade, Mrs Holland's class, I got that stomach virus and spent a week in the hosiptal. That was when Dr Harden kept poking me in the side and looking in my mouth. He spent some time trying to decide whether it was appendicitus, but he saw the white spots in my mouth. I guess Dad and Mom thought it was that but Dr Harden told Dad that about doing an appendictimes, finding there was nothing wrong there and while you were already inside you cut into the stomach and see more white spots inside. So he didn't do it then. I remember getting a card from the other kids in the class too. Oh yeah, it was about twenty years later that Dr Harden got around to doing the appendictime. Mrs Holland lived in the big house where East Cedar Rock forks at Church Street.
Mrs Wannamaker was one of the younger teachers, she taught fifth grade. I guess it was about then, it feels that way, school had gotten around to being boring school days. I really don't remember any I can assoicate with fifth grade. Maybe it was then that we started playing war games in the kudza patch across the branch. We had trails worn through them, hunting and capturing each other. It was an ongoing thing too, lasted most of the school year I guess.
Sixth grade was Mrs Deans' class, she was another new teacher, I think Mrs Wannamaker was too. I thought there was another regular teacher for one of those grades too, but cousin Linda remembers that Mrs Dean was out on maternity leave during the year and it was a temporary teacher we had for part of sixth grade. She was a young lady, probably a grad-student's wife from Clemson, a Mrs Vander ... something but I cant think of her name. She's the one who read to us after lunch every day. Later, during college years, I read the Hobbit by Tolkein, I decided then it was the same book that she read to us. It was either that year or the next that I had another crying spell for some reason. It was Sandra who went with me out back on the high steps again too. She remembered doing that when we were in first grade and mentioned it to Mrs Dean.
Mrs Keith had been the seventh grade teacher and principal for years. She taught all my brothers. The seventh grade room was across from the entrance too and was looking forward to being in that room and her class. But she left that year. Mrs. Deans taught us seventh grade and in the same room as the sixth grade, I think, maybe I did have class in that last room too. Anyway it was seventh grade and we were the old kids then.
In one of the earlier grades, the students were always putting on plays for the parents, I was a frog in one of them. Mom had made me a green frog suit too. It stayed at the old house, it stayed up in the attic at the house on the ridge, it stayed in the back room at my house. I use to find it occassionally when I was looking for something in that room. Then I had that first toss and burn thing during the '80s. It's been gone now for 15 years I guess.
I one of the other plays, Gary and I were pirates in Moby Dick. I'm sure there were other things that I did in that old auditorium, just hanging around on the stage I guess. When the space program got going, we'd all go there to watch on a TV sitting in the middle of the stage. Each class had there own section to sit in, that must have been a tradition for a long time.
Behind the outside back stairs was where they taught the older kids home skills, don't think it was called home economics, just everyday living skills like cooking, sewing and stuff. It was for seventh graders to I think. But that got dropped too by the time I was in seventh grade. Robert was the last one to go to it, he made Mom a couple of aprons I think.
There was one kid who lived close enough to walk to school. It was winter time and would be freezing in the mornings. He'd come down the road, hair wet from shampooing in the morning, sometimes frozen too.
Gary and I were best friends during elementary days. We'd kind of play by ourselves, around the branch and under the a tree on the other side of it.
There was one homework assignment, I've forgotten what grade it was for. We were suppose to do some project, I probably kept putting it off till the night before. I was trying to trace some pictures out of a magazine, I'd just lay the paper on top and try to see through to the picture. But it was too dark. That got me all upset and started bawling, again. It was either Dad or one of the brothers that thought of putting a light out on the porch and putting the picture and tacing paper up against the window. That worked.
The year I was in seventh grade was the year they changed things around again. Suppose to go to the big kids, high school the next year. They started junior high then, went to the old high school building on East Cedar Rock, the one where Dad went too.
The auditorium was upstairs, that's where there's the tale of some kids a long time ago put a wagon together up on the stage. There was a row of classrooms in the back and downstairs. The gym was new then, I guess they built it for the junior high. It was a seperate building, where the old gym use to be. The outdoors stuff was done in a field behind it which would have been behind the Morris and Bivens homes on Hampton Ave.
Had to go look it up, darn if Mrs Deans wasn't my homeroom teacher then too. It was like high school though, first time we changed rooms for the different classes. We did shadow drawings of each other, they were hung on the front wall. I asked her to ask the other kids if they could recogonize each other, actually wanted to know if anyone could recogonize me.
Mr Shirley was the principal. He taught math over at the high school before that. He came into our room once and talked about something. Told the joke about the old Greeks, "Say something in Algebra son." "Pi are square." "Darn it boy, I send you to school to learn and you don't learn anything. Pie are round, cornbread are square."
Paul Wright taught science class. He taught physics over at the high school. We did the hydrogen gas and balloon thing that year. I had to hold the balloons over the bottle with the acid and aluminum in it. We went outside and let it go with the postcard hanging from it. I did the same thing off and on over the next few years too. Never heard from anyone though. He had his own observatory too, it was up near Pumpkintown, toward Marietta I think. We went up there once during high school, the Science Club did.
Mrs Chamness taught english. We read Shakespeare's As You Like It that year. I had the Puck part and found where he was going say "damn" in it. I just had to go up to her desk and ask if she really wanted me to say that in class. Seems like I had Mrs Goff too, maybe one taught English and the other Literature.
Eight grade was the first time I had a gym class, Physical Education. Mr Jennings taught the boys, he was assistant couch at the high school too. He was rough and mean, though exercise was suppose to hurt. That pretty much turned me off to anykind of sports. It was also the first time I got naked and showered with other boys. Never did anything like that before though I might have if I had gone into the Boy Scouts. Had to start taking a bag of gym clothes to school and back home too. There was a fight among a couple of guys that year. I didn't see it but heard about, it was a different group. I remember hearing someone say they didn't look like they'd been in a fight. Someone else said you should have seen them without their clothes on.
I was a shepard, or was it Joseph, in the play that Christmas. Oh yeah, we had lockers too. Robin and I started playing chess at school too. Carried around one of the small plastic sets. I was carring it and my books and he called out to drop the books before you drop the game.
The old high school building was torn down during the '70s. The gym is the only building still there. It was used as a teen canten for a while. I think it's the American Legion post building now. At least I got to go to the school Dad went too. My bros didn't, even though they got to go to the high school for eight grade.