Back when we had the children’s home, we had two very wonderful supporters down in the town of Abbeville, South Carolina. These were Edith and Jim Davis.
Edith ran a shop on the square in Abbeville and Jim had an auction company. He also had a business that sold sort of surplus items. He gave the children’s home a hat press and many other items.
Mrs. Davis gave us countless items including a book her husband Jim had written along with permission to print some of his stories.
Jim, in addition to being the writer of a humor column in the Abbeville Press and Banner, was also a local judge. One day, we read in the Abbeville Press and Banner an article the Jim Davis wrote about a true story that happened one day while he was at work as a judge.
It appears that a young man came before Mr. Davis and told him that he was completely innocent. He was a victim of circumstance and circumstantial evidence. He went on to tell Mr. Davis about how underprivileged he had been and that he was trying to make things right in the world and that he just needed a chance. He told Mr. Davis of the hungry nights he had spent and all the injustices he had been through.
Mr. Davis said he felt sorry for him. He released the man and when he found out the man was going to have to walk home, he offered the young man a ride.
On the way home, Mr. Davis decided to get the young man a bite to eat. So, he went through the drive thru at the local Hardees restaurant. While waiting on the order, the young man told Mr. Davis he was going to run next door to the convenience store and get a pack of cigarettes.
Shortly after Mr. Davis got his food, the man climbed back in the truck with him and said, “Let’s go.”
A while later, Mr. Davis learned from the police that a man matching his description, with a truck matching the description of his truck, had driven the getaway vehicle that was used in the armed robbery of the convenience store next door to the Hardees.
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Suzanne and I, along with our oldest boy Jared, were in the process of moving into our very first apartment. This was apartment 17-C Country Club Lane in Anderson, South Carolina. Jared was almost 2 years old.
We had everything scattered about everywhere because of the nature of having to move everything a lot faster than we had intended to.
Somewhere in all this chaos, Jared managed to find a pair of scissors. He walked towards Suzanne and me opening and closing the scissors.
Both of us tried to remain calm and keep him from hurting himself with them. Well, he somehow managed to snip the corner of his eye and it was bleeding profusely. Suzanne handed me a washcloth and my keys and I ran out the door. I put Jared in his car seat and jumped in the van and took off.
I turned on the emergency flashers. I was driving as fast as I could, but still stopping at all the red lights. A city police car pulled up beside me with his blue lights on and he rolled down his window.
I rolled down the van window and he asked me, “What’s wrong?” I replied, “My baby cut his eye with some scissors.” The officer told me to follow him. He gave me a police escort to the emergency room and I pulled up to the emergency room door.
I exited the van and got Jared. I threw my keys to the security guard and told him the paper work was in the van and the cop could arrest me inside as soon as Suzanne got there.
I entered the emergency room and, even though it was typical to wait a long time for triage for some reason, I was taken back to a room immediately upon walking in the door.
As we entered the treatment room, I put Jared on the bed and it was then I noticed that I had left the house wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts that did not cover all I would have preferred they covered. My chest hair was matted with Jared’s blood and I looked like a gunshot victim.
The guard brought the keys to the van and said, “The cop just said for you to go home when you get done. Don’t worry about a ticket.”
Shortly, Suzanne arrived with my pants. We waited a very short time and Dr. Gregory Baird arrived and checked Jared out. He determined that Jared’s eye was okay and that there should be no permanent damage. We were very thankful.
There are some people in this world who do not make good passengers. My mother is one of them. No, I do not really think my mother is crazy. I just thought that the title was a good play on the title Driving Miss Daisy.
When my sister went off to college and I was still in high school, it was normal that my mother and I would drive down and move my sister into her dorm at the beginning of a semester. When the semester was over, we would move her out.
A side note here is that no one in my family has ever helped me move anywhere. When I moved in to my trailer in Spartanburg, South Carolina, my friend Phil Brown helped me move in.
My dog, Abby, and I moved all by ourselves from the trailer to the house on Burnett Street in Spartanburg. My girlfriend and now child-bride Suzanne, along with our friends Roger and Debbie, helped me move out of the Spartanburg house.
At the beginning of one semester, I drove the truck from Iva to Columbia to move my sister into her dorm at the University of South Carolina. All along the way, my mother had comments about my driving. “You are following too close.” Or, “You are braking too hard.” Finally, I stopped the truck in the middle of the road and asked my mother, “Do you want to drive?” She responded, “No, you are doing just fine.”
We spent a couple of hours unloading the truck and carrying the crates, refrigerator, television, etc., up the elevator at my sister’s dorm. Of course, all of this entailed enduring snippy comments from her suitemates and other residents of her floor. I don’t make a great presentation when I am hot, sweaty, and forced to endure stupid and rude.
My mother and I climbed back in the truck and proceeded to go to my Grandmother Ruby’s house in Johnston, South Carolina. We were going to move some of her stuff back to our place in Iva because my Grandmother Ruby was moving there.
My mother has a way of making work much harder than it has to be. Rather than letting a person proceed in a way that makes sense, she attacks it all at one time.
She started taking things apart and hauling them to the front porch. I had to work around all this clutter to load the truck with the larger, heavier stuff on the bottom.
I finally got the truck loaded with the stuff and everything tied down. I gave my Grandma Ruby a goodbye hug and off my mother and I went for the longest 76 mile drive ever taken.
The posted speed limit along most of the route was 55 miles per hour. Every time I would get the truck above 35 miles per hour, my mother would get on to me about driving so fast.
Every time I would try to move the truck away from the center line of the road, my mother would tell me I was getting way too close to the edge of the road and that I was going to run off in the ditch.
Due to the slow speed, cars were piling up behind us. Sometimes one would pass, but not often. About halfway home, our ever-increasing line of cars was joined by the most welcomed man of the hour, Super Trooper.
Super Trooper lit me up. That is the rolling blue lights came on and I was pulled over.
Super Trooper had me step out of the truck and to the back of it. He asked me how much I had to drink that night. I told him I had not touched a drop, but I would be happy to go to jail for DUI if he would just get me out of there.
Super Trooper then asked if there was something wrong with the truck. I told him, “Mechanically, the truck is running perfectly.” He asked me why I was driving so slowly. I told him that every time I approached 35 miles per hour my mother would yell at me to slow down.
Super Trooper then asked if I was having trouble with the steering. I told him that the truck had this problem that every time I moved away from the center of the road, this alarm would go off to tell me I was getting too close to the edge of the road and that I was going to run us in the ditch.
Super Trooper said, “I guess that alarm is your mother?” I told him yes. I told him I was fully capable of driving the truck home without any intervention from my mother and that the last half hour of the journey had just about driven me crazy.
Super Trooper went to my mother’s door and asked her to step to the rear of the truck. He told her he was issuing her a warning. He told her that she was not to tell me to slow down, speed up, or otherwise tell me how to drive.
He further told her that he was going to follow us to the county line to make sure his orders were followed. He also indicated he would radio ahead to make sure the troopers between where we were and our house were alerted to the situation.
We climbed back in the truck and my mother said, “I’m sorry.” In fact, she repeated that every time we crossed a county line. Every time we passed a county line, there was a trooper or deputy somewhere just past it.
We made it home. We did not lose one single item. To this day, I have never lost anything off the back of a truck. It is a source of pride for me. And, to this day, I will not let my mother forget about this little adventure.
What about you? Do you have a driving story you would like to share with us?
Suzanne and I, along with our oldest boy Jared, were in the process of moving into our very first apartment. This was apartment 17-C Country Club Lane in Anderson, South Carolina. Jared was almost 2 years old.
We had everything scattered about everywhere because of the nature of having to move everything a lot faster than we had intended to.
Somewhere in all this chaos, Jared managed to find a pair of scissors. He walked towards Suzanne and me opening and closing the scissors.
Both of us tried to remain calm and keep him from hurting himself with them. Well, he somehow managed to snip the corner of his eye and it was bleeding profusely. Suzanne handed me a washcloth and my keys and I ran out the door. I put Jared in his car seat and jumped in the van and took off.
I turned on the emergency flashers. I was driving as fast as I could,
but still stopping at all the red lights. A city police car pulled up beside me with his blue lights on and he rolled down his window.
I rolled down the van window and he asked me, “What’s wrong?” I replied, “My baby cut his eye with some scissors.” The officer told me to follow him. He gave me a police escort to the emergency room and I pulled up to the emergency room door.
I exited the van and got Jared. I threw my keys to the security guard and told him the paper work was in the van and the cop could arrest me inside as soon as Suzanne got there.
I entered the emergency room and, even though it was typical to wait a long time for triage for some reason, I was taken back to a room immediately upon walking in the door.
As we entered the treatment room, I put Jared on the bed and it was then I noticed that I had left the house wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts that did not cover all I would have preferred they covered. My chest hair was matted with Jared’s blood and I looked like a gunshot victim.
The guard brought the keys to the van and said, “The cop just said for you to go home when you get done. Don’t worry about a ticket.”
Shortly, Suzanne arrived with my pants. We waited a very short time and Dr. Gregory Baird arrived and checked Jared out. He determined that Jared’s eye was okay and that there should be no permanent damage. We were very thankful.
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