In the fourth grade, one of my best friends, Raleigh Bailes, was also on the Fort Mill Elementary School Safety Patrol. Raleigh’s father was part owner of Bailes & Crouch Jewelry on Main Street. The family lived on Brick Yard Road and we spent many hours at his house and roaming the woods on the edges of town.
We just had to cross brickyard Road to tightrope walk along the stone foundation of the unfinished fort started by the British to protect the Catawbas from the raiding Cherokee bands. Tramping through weeds and poison oak we would try to read the names on the lichen covered stones of the old Spratt Cemetery. Sometimes we would venture across the railroad tracks and deeper into the woods past the Spratt cabin and to the rich fields by the river. I expected Raleigh to be a friend for life.
When I was thirteen, and in Fort Mill Middle School, I was chosen for the Safety Patrol and was, for the second time, made Captain. OK…I am proud of that and still have my badge. Just after school started the safety patrol members were called to the auditorium for our first meeting with our sponsor, Patrolman Archie Ervin. At that meeting, we were informed that Raleigh would not be back. He had moved to Texas without any warning due to family problems.
I remember exactly what seat I was in when I heard the news. It was the one of the first times the notion of impermanence crept into my life. Years later, when we were in our early thirties, Raleigh came back to Fort Mill for a visit. It was great to see that he was doing well and good to have a positive closure to our friendship.
The great perc of being on the safety patrol was the annual trip to Springmaid Beach. Anyone who is familiar with Springmaid in the 1950s remembers the spartan hotel rooms. There was, of course, no air conditioning and beds were concrete slabs with 4-inch mattresses on top. Bathrooms were at the end of a screened-in porch/walkway. There was a swimming pool and a simple miniature golf course. By far, the most luxurious feature of Springmaid was the cafeteria. For the many families who vacationed there, it was limitless good food at a good price: for a young boy, it was pancakes, hamburgers, and banana pudding.
As basic as it was, Springmaid provided thousands of Springs Mills workers from Lancaster, Chester and York counties a chance to take their families for a week at the beach. At one time, the cost was $2.00 a bed per night.
On my first trip, as a ten-year-old, a great part of my time was spent sitting in the sand looking for shark’s teeth. I am often perfectly happy to be alone and have always been a “ground scanner”. I am a finder of shark’s teeth, arrow heads, interesting rocks, and small change. Some of my best memories are taking my own children out to search for the small treasures: on the beach for shells or sharks’ teeth and freshly plowed ground for arrowheads.
The second trip to Springmaid Beach was a different story. Thirteen-year-old boys of that era were interested in sports, food and girls. This is true even today but my generation was oh, so naïve. Our knowledge of sex was based on whatever wildly imaginative tales older boys would make up. There was no hint of sex on television and our research was limited to looking up “bad words” in the dictionary.
One of our chaperones for this trip was Fort Mill Police Patrolman (later Chief) Bobby Kimbrell. The Kimbrells were a farming family who raised cattle and loved bird dogs. Quail were plentiful in the area and hunting them was a great adventure. Field Trial competitions were a common event and having a champion dog carried some serious status. (There are no quail in this part of SC anymore for several reasons. Hunting is not one…cats are!)
On one of our first days at the beach, Bobby found out that a vacationing family owned a litter of German Shorthair Pointers with great hunting pedigrees and he was determined to get one. He talked about the dogs for a couple of days and was in deep negotiations to buy one. On Thursday he called me over after morning assembly.
“You’ve got a date tonight,” he told me with a big grin on his face. My dating history was pretty limited. At thirteen, I had taken a girl to the daytime movies maybe three times and never at night. I didn’t even know what questions to ask him.
“The lady who owns this dog drives a pretty hard deal,” he said. “She said that they would sell me the dog if I got her daughter a date with ‘the tall, dark-skinned kid’.”
I didn’t have any wiggle room. At that time, when a policeman told you to do something, you didn’t ask questions and besides, this girl was kind of cute and I was flattered but I was afraid Patrolman Kimbrell had the wrong perpetrator.
After the safety patrol had supper in the cafeteria, Officer Kimbrell helped me decide what to wear on the date. Sporting a relatively clean pair of shorts, a collar shirt and meticulously parted hair, I was shuffled off to the snack bar to meet Laurie, the daughter. She was a pretty blond girl and terribly embarrassed at being part of the same set-up that had hooked me. We listened to music on the juke box. “Purple People Eater” and oddly enough “Bird Dog” were some of the current juke box hits among young teens. The romantic stuff was still around a developmental corner.
In an awkward attempt to fulfill our obligations, we decided to take a walk on the pier as darkness fell, on the beach. She was good company but neither of us was a social butterfly and conversation lagged. There was, as I remember, some awkward kissing but only because we felt that was what we were supposed to do. I am pretty sure she breathed a sigh of relief when I walked her to her parents’ room.
As a result, Officer Kimbrell got his birddog, I learned my true worth and I am pretty sure Laurie rolled her eyes when asked how the date went. I admit, in time, I grew into quite the desirable guy but that would come later; I am sure it will. Cheryl says I am already worth two birddogs.
Campers at Springmaid 1958: LTR Freddie Blackwelder, Mike Hill, Melvin Godfrey and Chipper Heemsoth. All were 6th graders except Mike Hill who was a 4th grader. I cannot remember the counselor's name. Thanks to Chipper Heemsoth for the photo.
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