Pizza

  My friend Jimmy and I were in Atlanta on a Saturday night in 1973.  We decided to go to a Pizza Hut for supper.  It was near the hippie community in Atlanta downtown.  As we were getting out of his car, we saw a girl approaching us.  She was probably no more than 20 years old.  She had long hair that probably hadn't been washed in a while.  She was also wearing a long, white cotton dress that went down to her feet.  She was barefoot.

 Just by looking at her, you could tell she was stoned out of her mind.  She was also very pregnant.  She walked up to my friend and said, "What about the baby?"  My friend told her that he didn't know.  Then, she walked up to me.  She had tears in her eyes and said to me, "What about the baby?"  I told her that I didn't know, either.  I was afraid that she was looking for the father, and I didn't want it.  I saw a man across the parking lot getting out of his car.  I told her to go ask him.  We hurried inside.  

 I saw her go over to him to ask about the baby.  I felt sorry for her, but there was nothing I could do.  This was before you could call 911 to get help for her.  I also hope she got the answer she was looking for.  Oddly, a little over a year later, I was in that same hippie community getting stoned out of my mind.  I didn't see any babies, but I did float along the sidewalk one night.  

Mauldin

  When I was in the youth group at Kilbourne Park Baptist Church, I was in the handbell choir.  Our director was also the director of the Church Music Department for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.  He was proud of our handbell choir and wanted to show us off at a handbell convention at the First Baptist Church of Mauldin, SC near Greenville.  

 We stayed overnight at a motel outside of town.  As boys will be boys, some of us stayed up all night playing games, so we didn't get any sleep.  The girls in our group did get some sleep.  The next day was going to be a concert by several handbell choirs from around the state.  They brought in one of the premier writers of handbell music in the country to direct one of his pieces.  We had practiced his song back home for several weeks to make sure it was right.

 I played the deep bass bells.  They were pretty heavy, but the good news was I didn't have as many notes to play as the higher pitched bells.  I knew when to come in on the count. During the rehearsal for the concert, the writer of his piece decided to put a rest, where one of my notes was.  I didn't have a pencil to change the music, so I thought I would just remember it.

 There were about 12 handbell choirs in the church's gymnasium for the concert.  We were placed toward the back.  It was time for the playing of this man's piece.  Everything went flawlessly until we got to the changed rest.  I saw my note and played it with gusto.  There was a gasp from the other choirs.  I realized my mistake and quickly muted my bell.  I suppose the audience thought I had a solo, but I had committed the unpardonable sin in handbells.  The director glared at me.  I turned all the colors of red in my face.  

 After the concert was over, our director came over to me and just stared at me.  We packed up our bells and headed for his car.  He wouldn't speak to me.  We drove back to Columbia in silence.  I had embarrassed him in front of the famous composer.  My punishment was being kicked out of the handbell choir.  I blamed myself on not getting any sleep from the night before.  Even so, I thought my brief solo was dramatic.  Nobody else shared my belief.  Oh well.

Detergent

  As I have said previously, being a kid required science experiments to try out. I was a curious boy.  I never took chemistry, but I tried a chemistry experiment.  

 What would a combination of vinegar and dishwashing detergent taste like?  It sounds gross, and I have to admit it was, but a drink is a drink.  The first time I drank it, I threw up outside.  When you heard that your mother was going to wash your mouth out with soap, it was kind of like that.  I was foaming at the mouth from the detergent.  

 As time went on, I began to like the taste.  It was nasty, but I could tolerate it.  I would only drink this concoction on Saturday mornings, as I prepared for the sound of the noon siren.  There was no chugging of my drink.  Just a little sip or three.  My mother started to wonder why her vinegar and detergent seemed to be lessening.  She caught me taking some one morning, and I felt the paddle.  

 That was the end of my mixed drinks, at least until college.  Some would say that my drink made me clean inside.  It did.

Crabapples

  My grandmother had a crabapple tree in her backyard in Greenwood. When we would visit her, she wanted me to pick them and bring them in so she could make a pie.  I learned the difference between good and bad fruit.  The bad fruit had fallen on the ground and being eaten by birds and squirrels.  The good fruit was still in the tree but maybe not ripe yet.  They had to be ripe for the pie.  Another example of a science experiment growing up.  How to pick a ripe crabapple before falling to the ground. There were times, when I would come back emptyhanded.  This made my grandmother mad.  She was mad a lot.

 In our neighborhood growing up, there was a man who lived next to a busy road.  He had a crabapple tree.  Since I was familiar with the fruit, I could educate my friends on the art of how to know if the fruit is ripe.  He had the same problem as my grandmother of having most of the fruit to fall to the ground and be rotten.  What could we do with the rotten crabapples?  We threw them at each other.  The fruit had hardened, so it hurt when it hit us.  We did find out one use for them.  They could bounce on the road.

 One night, we ventured out and hid behind a bush next to the street.  Our goal was to try and bounce a crabapple and hit under a passing car.  We wanted the driver to think something was wrong with their car.  We had to get the timing just right so that the crabapple would hit just under the driver's seat.  We didn't know anything about physics or geometry, but those subjects factored heavily into the success of our mission.  When we got it just right, there would be a thump, and the driver would slow down dramatically to see what had happened.  We got a laugh over that and would go home.

 As time went on, we got bolder and started hitting multiple cars.  Some of us were better than others, but we would all hit at least one car during the night.  Apparently, some of the drivers had complained to the police about us.  One night, we were out there, when a police car came by.  Because it was dark, we didn't see it was a police car.  We launched a crabapple perfectly.  It bounced on the road and up into the car.  He turned on his lights, and we saw who he was.  I think we broke the world's record for running home.  The officer rang the doorbell of the man, waking him up.  He told the man to tell us not to do that anymore.  The man didn't know what the officer was talking about, but he said he would.

 The man saw us playing outside the next day and told us what the policeman had said.  We tried to feign ignorance, but who else could it had been in our neighborhood?  We were the only kids living there.  So, no more crabapples.  It was fun while it lasted.

Saturday

  Back in the 1960s, we lived in an area that was kind of close to three military installations:  Fort Jackson, McEntire Air National Guard Base and Shaw Air Force Base.  They would be prime targets to receive a nuclear missile aimed at them.  So, every Saturday at noon, Columbia would test their early warning sirens which were placed all over the city.  These things were placed on telephone poles and would blare out for five minutes.  It was important not to be doing anything during those five minutes, because you couldn't be heard over the sound.

 We lived about a block from one of these sirens.  At noon on the dot, it would sound like the world was coming to an end, but that was the idea.  It was deafening.  The kids in the neighborhood had a scientific query.  How close could we get to the pole with the siren on it before our eardrums burst?  Because you know that we were into science.  We could get as close as a couple of houses before we had to fall on the ground with our hands over our ears.  It was great fun.  The closest I ever got was one house away.  It was like sitting on the front row of a rock concert without earplugs. 

 The goal for us was to touch the pole that the siren was on. I don't think anyone made it.  It was for science.

Sumter

  When I was in 6th grade, we took a field trip to Charleston, SC to take a tour of the historic sites. We also had some of the parents to act as chaperones.  It was a big deal, and our parents had to sign permission slips for us to go.  My mother went as a chaperone, so I was supposed to be on my best behavior.

 One of the places we were to visit was Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  It was the site of the first shots of the Civil War or the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression.  In order to get out to Fort Sumter, we had to take a ferry boat.  Even though I had been there before with my Uncle George and his boat, there was still a lot of anticipation about this journey.

 I tended to get sick on boats, so I tried my best not to throw up.  I found that the best place to be on the boat was toward the back, because we didn't bump so much on the waves.  Because most of us were around 11 and 12 years old, some of us were very inquisitive about nature and living things.  One of our kids said he had heard that if you throw a Tums at a seagull, that the bird will catch it thinking it is food.  Then, the Tums will react with the water in the bird's belly, and the bird will start foaming and blow up. That theory seemed outrageous, but of course we had to try it.  

 Someone threw a Tums to a following seagull.  It swallowed it.  A couple of minutes later, we heard a small boom, and the seagull fell into the water dead. The experiment worked.  Unfortunately, one of the chaperones saw what we had done, and that was the end of our experimentation on seagulls.  We got to Fort Sumter and had a good talking to by our teacher.  It was fun, though.

Kennedy

  I was in 5th grade.  Mrs. Kirk was our teacher.  She was short and very strict.  Some kids thought she was mean.  We had to memorize a poem every six weeks and present it before the class.  I guess she liked me, because I did mine right.  

 It was November 22nd, 1963.  We just had lunch in the cafeteria and had settled in to carve green brick.  It was basically hard clay.  They gave every kid a stainless-steel knife to work on the brick.  (Imagine giving that kind of knife to a kid today.  There could be some injuries.)  

 Suddenly, another teacher named Mrs. Elmore burst into our room and frantically told Mrs. Kirk to turn on the TV.  We had a black and white TV in our classroom to watch educational programs.  Mrs. Kirk didn't know what to think, but she cut on our TV.  Just then, we heard the news.  President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas.  I knew where Dallas was, because I spent a summer in Fort Worth, when I was 3.  

 When I heard the news, I dropped my knife onto the table and gasped.  Some kids laughed, and Mrs. Kirk told them to be quiet.  Shortly after the first news bulletin, they said that the President was dead.  There was silence in our room, and we just stared blankly at the TV screen.  

 After a few minutes, our school's principal came over the PA and said that they were dismissing school.  We didn't have school buses.  Some parents came to pick up their children.  Most of us walked home still in shock.  

 During that weekend, I was glued to the TV except for one time that my neighbor Bruce and I walked outside to get some fresh air. My mother and I saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot live on TV.  My mother fell to her knees in front of our TV and yelled out, "They shot him"!  I don't know if she thought there was a conspiracy, but I kind of think she did.  

 Years later, I met one of the military pallbearers for Kennedy.  He lived in Columbia and named James Felder.  He later became a civil rights advocate and a hero of mine.  

 That day in 1963 will always be etched in my memory.  You just don't forget days like those.