Back in 1996, I was working at Rich's. My parents were living at Martha Franks Retirement Community in Laurens, SC. I was no longer experiencing family holidays like I should, so one of my coworkers named Thom invited me to spend Christmas with them. They lived in St. Matthews, SC. It was about 30 miles from Columbia. His wife was Mary Ann, and they had two children--Payton and Nathan.
I accepted their offer. St. Matthews is a small town in Calhoun County and is the best example of Mayberry that I have ever seen. The people there were very warm and friendly. I had not experienced a small town Christmas before, and I loved it. They welcomed me into their home and into their lives. From then on, I spent almost all holidays with them, and many days that weren't special occasions. I became a part of their family. Being part of a family was very important to me. I had that at Kilbourne Park with the Wises, and in Ft. Worth with the Millers. Now, it was the Stones.
Thom and Mary Ann introduced me to their church, too. It was First Baptist, and the pastor was Tommy Huggins. He had been there for years, and I think still is. I had been a member of large churches, so this atmosphere was foreign to me, but I ate it up. For almost 13 years, I spent my free time with them. When Thom opened a mattress store in Orangeburg, I was there on my days off. He even let me put some of my autographed memorabilia to sell in his store. When his store closed, we were back to playing at his house.
Thom and I wanted to open a store together for music and memorabilia. We found one in Cayce at the Parkland Plaza shopping center. It was 1600sf and was perfect. Our plan was to stock my product. I also had several friends that wanted to put their stuff in the store on consignment. We also planned to stock music books and sheet music for the schools in the area. We gave a verbal commitment to the real estate agent, but another person came in with money, and the agent took his offer over ours. It was very disappointing. Sometimes, your word is not as important as the green stuff.
They taught me how to play dominoes, which became somewhat cutthroat. Nathan taught me how to put together buildings with Legos. They also took me to visit Mary Ann's father in a nursing home in Columbia. We went several times. When my father died, they drove to Greenwood for his funeral. When Thom's mother died, I went to her visitation and funeral. Thom was a big fan of Pink Floyd, so I whispered in his ear "Comfortably Numb". He knew what I meant, because I found it to be true to get through my parents' deaths.
I was also accepted by Thom's brother Buddy who lived in Florida along with his wife. Thom also introduced me to several other friends including one called Rod. He is kind of famous, but I will leave it at that. One of Thom's relatives was on "The Bachelor", and they were mobbed at a restaurant while the TV show was on.
One Christmas, Thom got a gas-powered helicopter. We worked to put it together. It was a very cold day. Once we were ready for the first test flight, he turned it on and it flew up into a tree. We couldn't get it down. End of the helicopter. We ran back into the house to get warm. I loved being there for those many years. I'll write more later as to what happened to the end of that time in St. Matthews.
