Throw Back Thursday 21 July 2016 McClendon Studios Presents: Meals On Wheels

Meals on Wheels

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There was a very strange time in the history of parts of this country when litigation was rampant and everyone was worried about jurisdiction and boundaries.

There was a time when fire departments and rescue squads were trying to find ways to fund their operations when donations did not quite keep up with the needs and cities, counties, and states were not taking care of business financially.

There was a time when fire departments would charge a yearly fee to residents and, if a fire were to break out in the home of someone who had not paid the fee, the fire department would sit and watch it burn.

There were countless stories where help was available just across the county line, but the fire trucks could not cross the line to help.  We personally saw a situation in Greenwood County, South Carolina, where a car was on fire in the parking lot of a shopping center. It was almost in sight of a Greenwood City Fire Department substation, but the firemen were powerless to respond because the parking lot was not in the city limits.

It is that type of situation that occurred one day when the Iva Rescue Squad received a plea for help.

A tractor with a mower on the back was driving up the road and a truck pulled out to

pass the tractor.  The truck belonged to a caterer who had a contract with Meals on Wheels in Anderson County, South Carolina. 

The driver of the truck passed the tractor, but somehow managed to strike his fuel tank

on the mower. This cut the tank open and ignited a fire which engulfed the truck.

All of this happened nearly forty years ago, so I probably have some of the details mixed up, out of order, or just plain wrong.  The rest of the story is how I recall it after three strokes and lots of senior moments.

This was back before the days of 911.  The accident happened in Abbeville County, South Carolina, but the area had an Iva address.

The Iva Rescue Squad had two ambulances. One was owned by the Iva Rescue Squad and was paid for by the people living in and around the town of Iva.  I think that one was number 6-1.   The other ambulance was provided by Anderson County and was paid for by the taxes of people living in Anderson County. It was 6-2, I think.

The call was routed by the operator to Iva Dispatch, which was located in the town hall in Iva.  The equipment and staff were paid for by taxes collected from people living within the Town of Iva.

The call was sent out and the Iva Rescue Squad was dispatched.  We just so happened to climb into the ambulance that was owned by the Iva Rescue Squad.  I think it was 6-1, which was pronounced “Six one."  We had no idea which side of the county line the accident was on and it really did not matter.  What mattered was that someone needed our help.

We headed towards the scene and, as we approached the county line, Anderson County Rescue Control came on the radio to tell us to cancel our response because the acciden

t was in Abbeville County,

Shortly after Rescue Control told us to cancel, our chief came on the radio and told us to continue the rescue.  He said it was an Iva ambulance and that cancelling the response would delay help.

We continued with the rescue.

When we arrived, not only the truck, but the tractor and the entire area erupted in fire.  This fire surrounded us, but did not consume the area where we were.  Our driver called Iva Dispatch and asked for immediate help from fire.

The only fire department that Iva Dispatch had authority to dispatch was the Iva Volunteer Fire Department.  The fire department had the same equipment ownership set up as the rescue squad.  Some trucks were owned by the county and others were paid for by donations from the community and belonged to the Iva Fire Department.

Fire Control and Rescue Control were in the same building and both were paid for by the county.  In fact, at times, one dispatcher handled both Fire and Rescue control using different radios at desks that were parallel to each other with the dispatcher sitting in a swivel chair between the two desks.

Fire Control got on the radio and ordered Iva Fire to cancel because it was out of the county. The Iva Fire Chief ignored Fire Control and sent the Iva-owned fire trucks across county lines.

It was a good thing, too, because as Iva Fire was rolling up, the fire was almost to the second fuel tank on the truck.  Iva Fire put out the fire and perhaps saved our lives.

The driver of the truck was standing outside the truck when we arrived.  He was too much in shock to notice that he had second and third degree burns over every part of his body except the soles of his feet.

The senior EMT got the man onto the stretcher and he and I applied sterile burn sheets and lots of sterile triton water.  Our driver, who was also an EMT, left the door open between the driver’s compartment and the patient compartment.  He announced we were 10-66, which meant extreme emergency.

Our driver was among the best in the business.  He maneuvered that ambulance like a maestro playing a concert violin.  The driving was pure perfection.  Our EMT, I was still a junior at this time, was perfection personified. 

As we approached the City of Anderson, our driver radioed to Rescue Control and told him we were going to need help with the traffic lights from APD (Anderson Police Department).  Our driver added, “It’s gonna be life or death”. Unfortunately, our patient overheard this.  

Our patient sat up and said, “Life or death? What he mean, life or death?”  Our highly professional EMT calmed him down by saying, “That is just what we say so that we can get a police escort.”

As we approached the City of Anderson, we were met by none other than the police chief, himself driving the lead car.   He escorted us past all the red lights.  Each intersection was covered by city police, sheriff’s deputies, and Highway Patrol cars.  This effort was purely a work of art. 

We took our patient to the hospital, where he was stabilized and MedEvacced to a burn center. 

I never heard what happened to the man after that.  The official report was that he had second and third degree burns over 99% of his body.

As I understand it, charges were filed against the Iva Rescue Squad and the Iva Fire Department.  Judge G. Ross Anderson provided his services as our attorney pro-bono.  No trial, no reports to file.

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McClendon Studios Presents: Wavin' Man

McClendon Studios Presents:

Waving Man

Quite some years ago a column appeared in the Anderson Independent-Mail.  The
story was written by Steve Biondo who would later become a friend of ours through church at Boulevard Baptist. His son and our son both attended the Child Enrichment Center.

There was a man who sat on the side of the road in a wheelchair in the parking lot of the old B H store. The man would wave at all the passing cars. Steve’s column spoke of some great mystery surrounding “The Waving Man’ as Steve called him. He ended the column asking the Waving Man to get in touch with him so that they could exchange philosophies of life. I was not impressed because I knew the real story.

I was working with the Iva Rescue Squad (Anderson County Squad 6) and was in training to become an E. M. T. when we were called to what was broadcast as a train wreck. 

When we arrived at the scene, which was in front of the old Anchor Homes manufacturing facility, we soon discovered the truth. It wasn’t a train wreck. What had happened was a man had gotten drunk and then tried to hop a ride on the train that traveled between Calhoun Falls and Anderson. Most of what this train hauled was pulp wood.

Since the man was drunk, he missed his footing and was thrown under the train. The train cut both his legs off, but the weight of the train sealed off the blood flow. There was a lot of blood loss but he was no longer bleeding.

My job was to place the severed legs into a sterile blanket and carry these into the ambulance and then into the hospital. We got our patient bundled up and loaded in the ambulance and off we went. We arrived at the hospital and I carried the victim’s legs inside.

Later, when I arrived back at my house, my mother informed me that I missed dinner but that she would heat it up for me. I poured me a glass of iced tea. The microwave beeped and my mother served me two large barbeque chicken leg quarters- with extra barbecue sauce. How tasty. I decided then if I could eat those chicken legs, I could do anything.

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McClendon Studios Presents: Pool Cue to the Head

APool Cue to the Head

One day I was in the yard cleaning out my car when the tones went off. That is the rescue squad radio made a noise that would open up all the Iva Rescue Squad monitors so they could hear the dispatch. There was a call that went out that we were needed at Snuffy’s Tavern. I went to the squad hut and got in the ambulance. The ambulance rolled and we pulled up to Snuffy’s.

Snuffy’s was a rather rough place that was located directly across the street from my

family’s Western Auto Store. When we arrived I saw my father standing at the corner of the parking lot pointing to the ground beside him. I thought he was telling the ambulance to park there. Since we were already parked I got out of the ambulance and went in.

When we got inside I commenced to assisting the E. M. T. to tend to the victim. It seems that there had been a fight. I don’t know what it was about but during the course of the fight our patient had a pool cue impaled through his skull. He was lying on the floor with both ends protruding from his skull. Soon after the man had been impaled by the pool cue his sons produced guns and shot several people. Several other people shot back and many were hit. All had left the bar.

I looked up and saw my father standing over me with his 357 Magnum in his hand. He had been signaling for me not to go in the bar but to come over to him and stay out of it. Since I did not comply with his wishes he was determined to protect me. And there he was.

We completed immobilizing the pool cue in the man’s skull. We transported him to the Anderson Memorial Hospital where he died on the operating table.

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In Loving Memory of Papa Bruce

A Tribute to Papa Bruce

29 Years ago today (12 May 1987) my father, Robert Bruce McClendon, Jr., went to live with Jesus. It was very much a surprise to me when it happened.  Evidently it was not so much a surprise to him.

When Papa died, my mother, brother, and his wife were in Texas visiting my mother’s side of the family.  Before my mother left for the trip, my father had visited Southlawn Memorial Gardens in Starr, South Carolina, to arrange the purchase of burial lots. He decided that he and my mother would go there together to make the purchase when she returned.

Not too long before he died, my father asked me what I would like to inherit from him

Suzanne and Papa

. The truthful answer was nothing.  However, after he pressed me a little bit, I realized I did want the cash register he and I had bought together a few years before.

The day before he died, Papa asked to get to visit with our son Jared.  After the store closed that night, we took Jared up to see Papa and left him to visit Papa while we went to see the movie Crocodile Dundee.

That night when we came to pick Jared up, both Papa and Jared were asleep.  We took Jared to our house without waking up Papa.

We got to thinking that Papa might wake up and panic if he saw that Jared was not in his crib. I called to let him know we had Jared.

Jared "Holding" Papa Bruce

At the time of Papa’s death, I was getting the store converted to a computer inventory system. This was a long process.  The day before Papa died the computer came online and we printed out one receipt.  It was a pretend sale, but Papa could see great things were in store for our little company.

That test sale was the first and last sale the computer ever made.

In order to get the computer on line - this was back in the days before there was an internet - we had to have a second phone line installed at the store.

Every morning I would open the store early and get started working on getting the store’s inventory entered into the computer.  I would start about an hour early before customers started coming in because this was usually a good time to get things done.  Since I was not quite ready to start transacting business, I did not answer the main phone line at the store, but I did answer the computer line at the store since only Suzanne had the number.

The phone rang and I answered it.  Suzanne said, “Papa is having a heart attack.” 

What had happened was that my father started having chest pains while getting dressed.

Out in our back yard between our house and my grandmother’s house, my father had installed an old farm bell like what people on farms used to let those people who were working in the field know that it was time to eat. Papa had discovered that his grandson, Patrick, loved to ring this bell.  So, he put a rope on the bell that went all the way to the ground so that Patrick could ring the bell all he wanted to.

*Papa went out to the back yard and started ringing the bell over and over.  This alerted my grandmother.  She saw Papa lying on the ground ringing the bell and ran down the hill to our house and got my wife Suzanne to the door.  Suzanne called me on the computer line at the store.

I was rattled and could not think right.  I knew the rescue squad’s phone number.  The number was also on a big orange sticker on the telephone at the store.  Further, the auto-dialer directly by the phone was programmed with the rescue squad’s phone number.  I could not think of any of these things.  I did remember to dial the operator.

The ambulance was dispatched and I went to the house.  I locked the store but did not set the alarm.

When I got to the house, Papa was on the ground telling my grandmother to calm down and go into the house.  He was also telling me to have Suzanne get the store open.

Suzanne had never opened the store before and did not have a clue how to do it.  I told her as best I could and we loaded Papa in the ambulance.

At 10:10 AM, Papa was pronounced dead by Dr. William Walker.

Papa was a great man.  The story I am about to tell is indicative of the type of man he was.

Suzanne has Also Written a Post in Papa's Honor

Television Marathon

The best way to get my father to do anything was to tell him he could not do it.  He had to prove you wrong.

The RCA television sales representative came to the store and offered Papa a great deal on a truckload of televisions and VCRs.  So, he ordered them. This was on a Friday evening.

He told my mother what he had done and she walked him into the storeroom and pointed out that it was full of televisions, stereos, and VCRs.  She told him we did not have room for the truckload of electronics and that until we sold the stuff we had we could not pay for it.  She told him he would have to cancel the order first thing Monday morning, unless he could somehow get rid of EVERYTHING over the weekend.

The next morning, Saturday, I was eating breakfast at the Waffle King.  Papa walked in and said, “Get your ridin’ britches on, David.”  He then told me he was going to sell every television, stereo, and VCR we had in stock that day.  This was a large stockroom full of electronics. 

When we got to the store, I loaded half of each kind of VCR we had in the 1965 Ford Galaxy I was driving.  I also loaded 5,000 feet of antenna wire and a large assortment of antenna connectors, along with my tool box in the car.

At this time, cable-ready televisions were fairly new and practically no one knew how to set up a VCR.  It required a technician to set up either.  So, I would have to set up and install whatever Papa sold that day.

Papa sold the first one early and he told me to call before I left each house to see where to go next.

Suzanne fixed me a sandwich and I gulped it down between stops.  I would go to a house and find that one of the two trucks (Old Red and the Ford Truck) had dropped off a television and, in some cases, an antenna. 

At one house I arrived to find three televisions, three VCRs, and one antenna.  By this time, I was exhausted but I got it done.

Finally, about three hours after the store closed, I made it back to the store.  Papa had sold everything, even a television that had been traded in that did not work.  He sold it to an electronics student that wanted to tinker with it.

I was worn out.  The only electronic things left in the store were the coffee pot we used to make coffee for employees and the calculators we used in the office.  There was absolutely nothing electronic left in the store.

I was tired; Papa was happy.  The entire crew had pulled together to get this all done in one day.  Suzanne and Nana filled out contracts until their hand cramps had cramps.  The shop guys took turns delivering televisions in the two trucks and Carl delivered several in his car.

This was a lot of work and a lot of fun.  I wish we could do it again.

Papa, we miss you.




*Note: In the video I state that Papa put on his shoes and went outside.  My Aunt Gloria reminded me that when we went into the house we found his shoes beside the chair where it appears he had placed them.  It appeared that he was going to sit down and put his shoes on but got to hurting too bad and went outside to the bell.

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McClendon Studios Presents: Wavin' Man

McClendon Studios Presents:

Waving Man

Quite some years ago a column appeared in the Anderson Independent-Mail.  The
story was written by Steve Biondo who would later become a friend of ours through church at Boulevard Baptist. His son and our son both attended the Child Enrichment Center.

There was a man who sat on the side of the road in a wheelchair in the parking lot of the old B H store. The man would wave at all the passing cars. Steve’s column spoke of some great mystery surrounding “The Waving Man’ as Steve called him. He ended the column asking the Waving Man to get in touch with him so that they could exchange philosophies of life. I was not impressed because I knew the real story.

I was working with the Iva Rescue Squad (Anderson County Squad 6) and was in training to become an E. M. T. when we were called to what was broadcast as a train wreck. 

When we arrived at the scene, which was in front of the old Anchor Homes manufacturing facility, we soon discovered the truth. It wasn’t a train wreck. What had happened was a man had gotten drunk and then tried to hop a ride on the train that traveled between Calhoun Falls and Anderson. Most of what this train hauled was pulp wood.

Since the man was drunk, he missed his footing and was thrown under the train. The train cut both his legs off, but the weight of the train sealed off the blood flow. There was a lot of blood loss but he was no longer bleeding.

My job was to place the severed legs into a sterile blanket and carry these into the ambulance and then into the hospital. We got our patient bundled up and loaded in the ambulance and off we went. We arrived at the hospital and I carried the victim’s legs inside.

Later, when I arrived back at my house, my mother informed me that I missed dinner but that she would heat it up for me. I poured me a glass of iced tea. The microwave beeped and my mother served me two large barbeque chicken leg quarters- with extra barbecue sauce. How tasty. I decided then if I could eat those chicken legs, I could do anything.

Watch This On YouTube

Read My Child-Bride Suzanne's Blog

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McClendon Studios Presents: A Pool Cue to the Head

A Pool Cue to the Head

One day I was in the yard cleaning out my car when the tones went off. That is the rescue squad radio made a noise that would open up all the Iva Rescue Squad monitors so they could hear the dispatch. There was a call that went out that we were needed at Snuffy’s Tavern. I went to the squad hut and got in the ambulance. The ambulance rolled and we pulled up to Snuffy’s.

Snuffy’s was a rather rough place that was located directly across the street from my

family’s Western Auto Store. When we arrived I saw my father standing at the corner of the parking lot pointing to the ground beside him. I thought he was telling the ambulance to park there. Since we were already parked I got out of the ambulance and went in.

When we got inside I commenced to assisting the E. M. T. to tend to the victim. It seems that there had been a fight. I don’t know what it was about but during the course of the fight our patient had a pool cue impaled through his skull. He was lying on the floor with both ends protruding from his skull. Soon after the man had been impaled by the pool cue his sons produced guns and shot several people. Several other people shot back and many were hit. All had left the bar.

I looked up and saw my father standing over me with his 357 Magnum in his hand. He had been signaling for me not to go in the bar but to come over to him and stay out of it. Since I did not comply with his wishes he was determined to protect me. And there he was.

We completed immobilizing the pool cue in the man’s skull. We transported him to the Anderson Memorial Hospital where he died on the operating table.

Read my Child-Bride, Suzanne’s Blog

Watch this on YouTube

Help us reach 1,000 YouTube subscribers. Please watch some of our videos. If you like them, please subscribe. Also, please share our YouTube information with your friends. We thank you so much for all your help.