A Little Time Travel to Small Town Fort Mill

November is the time of Thanksgiving. It is a reminder to pause from the pressure to constantly move forward and to reflect on the good things life has given us.

One of the things I am most thankful for is the opportunity I had to spend my childhood in Fort Mill when it was still a small town. As a Baby Boomer turned Senior Boomer, I would like to take you on a little stroll through Fort Mill during my formative years. We lived in Whiteville Park on Gregg Street so I was only a short walk from town. 

Until I was about seven my territory stretched from Pine Street to Springs Street and from the woods behind Gregg Street to Hill Street. As long as I was within these boundaries, I could hear Dad whistle or Mom call out. Within those borders I met my first friends. Michael and Billy Davis lived next door and were the undisputed master builders with Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets. With them I filled the woods with log forts and the air with the sounds and smell of cap pistols.

Chipper Heemsoth lived just across Gregg Street and taught me all I know about baseball. Noted now for his knowledge of local history, then he was a fountain of baseball facts. He still is, although his baseball cards got thrown away when he was in the Air Force. All those Mickey Mantle, Willie Mayes, Stan Musial, and Yogi Berra cards… gone forever.

Joe Hinson lived down the street and was the collector of comic books and the owner of the only backyard pony anywhere. Both our fathers were members of the National Guard and so, armed with my Red Ryder lever action air-rifle, I helped him fill his back yard and mine with B.B.’s. We spent hours plinking cans, reloading by taking a mouthful of B.B.’s and spitting them into the small loading hole in the barrel. Anyone who swept the area with a metal detector today would be baffled by the thousands of micro blips.

These were the friends who shaped my early life and I spent as much time in their houses as they did in mine.

By age eight, my range expanded to all of Whiteville park. Just down the hill across Springs Street lived the Shillinglaws. Their daughter Carol Mason, and I spent some of our early years together. Her family occasionally took me with them to their river house. There is an early picture of Carol Mason and me at the river that I wish I could find. Carol Mason has always been very fair-skinned and I am dark. I had my usual shirtless summer tan and we looked like salt and pepper shakers. It would be several years before I had a crush on Carol Mason but it would come. I don’t think she ever knew.

From our Gregg Street house my friends and I would travel, usually in pairs or bunches across the open lots on the corner of Springs and Oak Street. The corner lot, now occupied by the Sain house, was a makeshift baseball field and we often played there when it was not a massive mud puddle. Traveling down Springs Street, we would walk past the side-by-side houses where Cindy Howie and Linda Parks lived. Both were classmates of mine and I knew their families. 

Cindy’s father was a barber and always cut my hair. One day at home, I was standing beside Dad watching him shave and my hair was its usual mess. In an attempt to make me a little more presentable he said, “Let me comb your hair like Gene Autry’s.” I was so impressed that Dad would always, I am sure with a wink, tell Mr. Howie to cut it in the Gene Autry style.

Linda’s Dad, E. S. Parks, was one of my father’s best friends, was the manager of the Bank of Fort Mill and was the captain of the Fort Mill National Guard.  Dad was his 1st Lieutenant executive officer and we often visited E. S., Lucy, Linda, and Eddie. In their backyard was a sweet gum tree that I was prone to falling out of when showing off for Linda and her friends. 

Just before main Street, where the Subway sandwich shop is now, was the Massey House. It had a wrought iron fence with rails and a finial on each post. I would always find a stick before I reached the fence because of the machine-gun tap, tap, tap of dragging it across every rail. I am sure they hated to see me coming. Across the street was Okey Lumber Company where my uncle Elwin (Monk) Case worked.

Curly Sain’s Pure Station was on the corner in the building where the veterinary office is now. The building was new at the time and its Space Age design gleamed with lots of glass and curves. The previous brick station had been owned by E. L. Case, my grandfather.

Main Street did not look terribly different then but only the Fort Mill Barbershop and Kimbrell’s Furniture remain the same. Kimbrell’s Furniture Company was the place to go for living room furniture or that new bedroom suite. Managing it when I was young was Eb Kimbrell, another of Dad’s friends whose sons Gary and Tommy were friends of mine as well. Dad worked for Kimbrell’s for a while delivering refrigerators and dining room sets before he decided that working with his brain might be a lot less tiring.

Since this is not meant to be a store-by-store tour, let’s follow my nine-year old self to the stores that mattered to me. Below the Home Appliance Store was Robert Bradford’s Store, the home of model cars and records. I talk about it in an earlier episode so will pass it by today.

Farther down on the right was the Dime Store (I confess to never knowing the real name) Just inside the entrance was an oval counter with bins of what was called “penny candy”. It was purchased by the scoop and poured into little white paper bags.  I was enticed by the jellied orange slices, caramel covered almonds, Mary Janes, and yellow wrapped butterscotch but never by those orange peanut-looking things with the texture of very stale marshmallow. I think today they are used by UPS to protect delicate shipments. The Dime Store was where my friends bought cap guns and caps as well as B. B.’s and small toys. More than once I established my good-guy cowboy status by purchasing a silver star to pin on my scrawny chest. Don’t mess with Mike the Lawman.

For some reason, the Pyramid Grocery stands out in my mind. It was located near the Spratt Building and was an old-time grocery store. The rich aroma of local vegetables and fresh cut meat is unforgettable. Stores were not air conditioned in the early 50’s so groceries had to keep their doors open and needed screen doors to keep out flies. The wood framed door of the Pyramid had a Merita Bread sign stenciled on the screen. To this day, when I hear the distinctive slap of the old, spring-controlled screen doors, I think of the Pyramid. 

Martin’s Drug Store was just below the Pyramid and only tempted us when we had the ready cash to buy an ice cream cone. Crossing over Main Street, usually with the Center Theater as our ultimate destination, we would sometimes spend our savings on a fountain Coke at Roger’s Drug. A couple of tables at the back served as the meeting place for Main Street businessmen. I knew there was a good chance that Dad would be there and took every opportunity to panhandle him for change.

From Rogers Drug, my cronies and I would scurry past the Rexawl Pool Room.  If the door was open, the crack of ceramic pool balls, and the acrid smell of beer would fire my imagination about the goings on in that dark chamber of wickedness. There were always young men and high school boys hanging around the outside joking and smoking. 

Finally, my friends and I reached the bottom of Main Street and the Center Theater…entertainment mecca of our universe. Television, believe it or not, was still only part time and once Saturday morning cartoons ended, everything was news and grown up stuff. Saturday afternoon at the Center Theater was a kid-fest full of Heckle and Jeckle, Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Cartoons were followed by the “serials” which always ended with Red Ryder or Lash LaRue in terrible trouble in a burning building or going over a cliff in a wagon.

Then came the real deal. The main feature. We opted for westerns or science fiction or monster movies. Double features were the BOGO’s of the era and twenty-five cents would buy four hours of pounding hooves or unworldly screams. I was never a fan of the Japanese Godzilla movies…Give me a good Vincent Price or Boris Karloff movie anytime.

Mr. Patterson owned the Center Theater and was king of the candy counter. While a visit to today’s concession stand requires an A+ Credit Rating and considerable disposable income, in those sugar infused days, a medium Coke, a box of popcorn and a package of Goobers would up the total cost of entertainment to around twenty cents an hour.  

We had tough teeth in those days.  I believe the Sugar Daddy sucker was a nefarious plot to build up the new science of orthodontics. For those blooming gourmands among us, the ultimate dental challenge was the Black Cow. All the tooth-loosening power of a Sugar Daddy plus enough chocolate to invade the smallest cavity. 

When the final “The End” flickered on the big screen and the lights came up, it was time to be a nine year-old boy again. No great silver horse waited to carry me home and dinner was at the family table, not around a campfire by the chuck wagon.

I am thankful for those times, simple as they were, hokey as they seem, and as gone as lard-fried chicken. The Fort Mill of my youth lives only in grainy photos and stories captured before the memories fade forever. I write these episodes as a time capsule so that my family and friends have a reference point to better understand my generation and its beliefs and values.

On this Thanksgiving, thank you world for the good memories and the wonderful people that lift us above the worries and troubles of our daily lives.

Amen.