McClendon Studios Presents: Derrick Family Fire

McClendon Studios Presents Derrick Family Firefighters

Disclaimer: Many of the stories are completely fictional.  Other stories are fictional accounts of true stories.  Other stories are completely true.  Sometimes the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Not many people remember this, but years ago in the town of Iva, South Carolina, the Iva School Board voted to join with the school in Starr, South Carolina, and form School District 3.

The plan was to build a new high school and continue using the schools in the two towns as elementary schools.  The all-black school, New Deal, would become the Middle School.

While they were building the new high school, a fire broke out in the old Iva School

which was soon to be Iva Elementary School.  The town all gathered around the old school watching it burn.

The Iva Volunteer Fire Department bravely fought the fire.  The Starr Volunteer Fire Department was on the way to give a hand. Still, the on lookers thought there was little hope to save the school.

Way off in the distance the crowd could hear a loud horn honk and Papa Derrick yelling “Git out de way”.  The whole Derrick family had climbed on the old farm truck and was a comin’ fast and furious.

The truck turned the corner onto the street where the school was burning.  U. J. was blowin’ the horn and yelling at people as they drove by.

Papa Derrick was standing up in the front seat waving his arms and yelling at everyone to, “Git out de way.”

The crowd parted and the whole town watched in horror as U. J. Derrick drove the family truck right up into the open front doors of the burning school.

The crowd was amazed when Mama Derrick jumped off the truck and started stomping out the flames.  Papa Derrick jumped out from the front seat and started stompin’ flames on his side of the truck.

The crowd could hear Mama Derrick holler at her son, “There’s one over thur, U. J. Git it out.”  And to her daughter, “Anne, thurs one right behind you; git it.”

Derricks were stompin' everywhere.  Finally, after a great deal of serous stompin’, the Derrick family managed to stomp the fire completely out.  The family saved most of the school.  All that was lost was the principal’s office and the library.

No significant loss since the library only had two books and both of them had already had all the pages colored in. The principal was never in his office anyway.

Mayor Hewell took up a collection among the bystanders to thank the Derrick Family.  The mayor presented the $200 that the crowd managed to put together.  A reporter from the Iva Journal asked Papa Derrick what his family was going to do with all that money.

Papa Derrick smiled and said, “Thur’s a lot we kin do with that heap of money.  However, I think the first thing we should do is git the brakes fixed on the truck.”

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Falling Bells Crescent High School Marching Tigers.

Sometime during early 1977 the Crescent High School band room burned. It was a portable unit that was on the school grounds. Basically it was a trailer. It had a large room to set up to play in and a small office storage room.


It seems that a janitor had turned on the heater so that the room would be warm by the time students arrived. The janitor went to other buildings on the campus and later noticed smoke and called the fire department.

When I arrived fire trucks from the Starr Fire Department were on the scene and the fire was pretty much out. My fellow tuba player, Dan Dyar, was also a volunteer fireman. The local newspaper ran a picture that showed Dan carrying out “His Tuba” that had gotten so hot in the fire that it had fused to the tuba chair. The thing was that tuba was my tuba.


We spent the rest of the year with no band room and did not have actual band class. No more concerts and no more lessons. Those of us who stayed on campus for the final period had to sit in the visiting football team locker room in the athletic building. The school cared so little about the band that we did not even get any chairs to sit on. What few benches there were did not provide enough seating for everyone to sit at.


The school refurbished the burned band room by the beginning of the next year and had new school instruments to replace the ones that had burned up. They did not replace the tubas. Instead they had them reconditioned and refinished.

They were refinished in nickel plating that looked tarnished from the beginning. There was no way to polish them properly. The heat had melted the large bells of the tubas. When the company that refurbished the tubas put them together they did a poor job and so, one by one, the bells broke free from the necks of the tubas and crash they came to the floor.

I had to continually haul tubas to Draisen’s House of Music to have them re-welded. Still the bells would fall off at inappropriate times.

Mom, Dad’s Making Popcorn!

Mom, Dad is Making Popcorn

I like to make popcorn. The microwave kind is really too dry for me. I like to make it on the stove

when I can. We had just bought a house in Starr, South Carolina. That house had a cooktop built into the counter. The cooktop was old, the counter was old and the pot I normally used was pretty beat up and bent. The pot was so bent that often when the popcorn was popping hot oil would pop out of the pot and start small fires on the cooktop. This wasn’t any problem, but it was rare that I cooked anything that did not set off the smoke detector.

One day I was starting to pop popcorn when one of my sons yelled, “Mom, Dad’s making popcorn again, call the fire department.” I just had started when there was a knock at our back door. I wondered out loud, “I wonder who that could be.” My son said, “I’ll bet it’s the fire department.”

I opened the back door and sitting in the yard was a fire truck. It was one of the smaller trucks like they use to put out grass fires. On the side of the truck were the words “Flat Rock-Bowen Fire Department.” The man knocking at the door was wearing a fire department uniform and he said, “I’m with the Flat Rock Bowen Fire Department and we are raising money…”

My son got a great kick out of all of this. He rolled around on the ground laughing so hard. The poor man from the fire department had no idea what was going on until I filled him in on it. It got really bad for me the next year.

Every year the fire department went around from house to house in the community selling tickets for portraits to be made at the fire department. Every year we bought one.
One day I was asleep in my recliner and my daughter, Laynie, decided that it would be a good time to practice putting makeup on other people. I was sound asleep when she did this. When I am sleeping you can land a 747 in the room with me and not disturb me.
Well, I got all the works; lipstick, eye shadow, you name it. She painted each one of my nails a different florescent color (she forgot she was out of nail polish remover, what a trip to the Bi-Lo that was). She sat back and admired her work and about that time there was a knock at the door. The knock woke me up.

I started towards the door and Laynie said, “Daddy.” “Not now baby, Daddy has to answer the door.” She pleaded, “But Daddy.” I replied, “This won’t take but a minute.”

I opened the door and there stood the guy from last year. He looked up at me and bit his lip. He went through his presentation and I sat down to write him a check. My wife whispered in my ear and I got a really stupid look on my face (as if I could look or feel any stupider). I gave the check to the guy and told him my daughter had been playing “make up Daddy.” He just kind of laughed.

I was sure all eyes were on me when I went to get the picture made at the fire station.

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