You Can Go Home Again

Same sky over Bethune that was there 40 years ago

Bethune, South Carolina

10/12/10

It’s 3:AM, dark and cool after a scorching day.   The crickets wall of whirring sound animates the night and sits atop your subconscious mind  a vibrating wash that vies with the 24 hour electric thrum of  a manufacturing plant in the night’s distance.  The plant lies just beyond a stand of piney woods here in Bethune.  It used to be the textile plant that JoAnn’s father managed 55 years ago.  It manufactures something else now

We are camped on the lawn of one of JoAnn’s mother’s old friends, Dottie Hendrickson.

It has been an emotional trip 40 years back in time for JoAnn.  She was reluctant to visit her old childhood haunts as I think we all are to some extent.  Things are never the same and we worry about being disappointed.  Things are smaller than we remember.  As children the world was large and limitless then.  A few trees then could became a glen as mysterious as Sherwood Forest. 

As we drove closer and closer to Bethune I could sense her  increasing nervousness until we came across familiar roads and intersections in the peripheral countryside.  Then curiosity began to take over trepidation as it usually does.  This road was where that accident happened.  This corner was where that business used to be.  Those ruins  were once a gas station but after that faded letters said it might have also been a diner.

JoAnn's Company house for six months

The empty shambles and abandoned structures littered with old rusty equipment did not bode well for a return visit.  Soon we entered a zone of life.  Normal activity, a newer fuel station, railroad tracks, a Dollar store and a small strip of 4 stores.  A couple of streets peeled off to the left and right and we took the right one that said Main.  Oh my,  this was a  town that had seen better times.  The old textile mill had been the only industry here back then but now on Main only every other third or fourth store front showed some sign of marginal activity.  There was clearly an absorption of commerce and human activity back into the sidewalk cracks.  There was so little traffic that a lady with child  in a golf cart ignored the lights and drove languidly across Main.  There was where the old pharmacy was that JoAnn use to hitch up her pony and across the street was where the sheriff made her clean up her pony’s “business.”

We turned right down a side street past a small hardware store with more signage than product and by another abandoned and weathered building with grasses growing tall in front of a side door, past an unpainted peeling water tower and down a residential street .  That lawn of that house was where she played with so and so.  This street was where she rode her horse Pal.  That little white house was where she lived for 6 months while her dad got settled in to his managerial job running the plant.  Finally we pull up to Dottie’s house but no one is home so we decide to tour the rest of the town and neighborhood.  This should be quick.  There are two sets of railroad tracks that run parallel on either side of Highway 1 so both neighborhoods are across the tracks.  But the street of homes on the East side of US 1 are older yet more substantial and quite a few built of brick.  There is a lot more brick construction here in  the south than in our own NorthWest where tall timber was more plentiful.  

Virginia Ann's dad's barn where Jo rode horses

More memories flood back as we slowly creep along the street with the Airstream in silent tow.  This was a street where she also rode full tilt and that’s the old barn where “Skipper” kept his pony.  That white house on the corner with its red barn and 20 feet from the tracks was Virginia Ann’s and that one over there was  Benji’s.  As we cruised past JoAnn says “I could swear that looks like   Benji !”  “Do you want me to ask her if she is?” I ask.  “Oh no,no, I would be too embarrassed !” as she covered her mouth.  What the heck I think, we’ve only come 8000 miles so far to visit Bethune.  So I roll down the window and call out “Excuse me, is your name Benji?” “Why yes it is” she says.  And I say “Well this is JoAnn Staub!”  Immediately recognizing the name she says “JoAnn Staub!” as she walks her dog across the street towards my window.  For the next twenty minutes it was catch up on all the births and passings of small town’s  people.  She was a very gracious and well educated lady recently retired from IBM and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with her and her South Carolina accent.  All this history and family tree stuff has always been interesting to me and to hear more of JoAnn’s past so fleshed out was fascinating.   We were stopped in the intersection for more then twenty minutes the occasional driver just went around us with nary a fuss.  Three other ladies stopped to chat and all tried to talk us into moving to Bethune and retire.  Ah, thanks but no thanks.  After exchanging e-mails we said good bye and returned to Dottie’s house.

Now there was a car parked out front so someone  was home.  JoAnn walked around the back and said there was a Virginia Ann (from her childhood) on the screen porch and she asked us up for a glass of wine.  Sounds good.  Again there ensued an hour of catch up on more history while Dottie’s two cats bounded about.  It was the two cats that Virginia Ann had come over to check on and she was just about to leave when we drove up.  As Dottie was still out of town until tomorrow Virginia graciously invited us to her home to hook up next to her pool house.  We had electricity and water and behind some fences and hedges we were actually right next to the center of town.  

The next morning broke hot again so we stepped into Virginia’s  ac cooled dim living room and chatted more about the past and a little about the future.  later that morning she had to go into Camden so after we called and found that Dottie was back home  we went over to her place.  Thanks to Virginia Ann for her hospitality.  So much Southern hospitality.  It’s true what they say about it.

JoAnn's second Company home

So after more catch up with Dottie a slight little lady that speaks her mind with a testy smile and glint in her eye I prepared a dinner of garlic chicken that I had learned to cook on Maui.  After lots of wine and as I had been up since 3:30 AM that morning I was ready for the Airstream’s cushy bed.  But first we took long and rejuvenating shower’s in Dottie’s place.  The roomy spray was a treat.

Tomorrow we will take Dottie up to Camden for shopping, pick up some steaks on the way back for some grilling. There is one little meat store in town.  

Camden is an inland town known for its horses and steeplechase circuit and use to be the summer playgrounds of people such as the Du Ponts.  It should be interesting.  I hope it cools off a bit.  I’m already starting to think about the Shenandoah Valley next week and the coolness of  Blue Ridge Mountains again.  In some ways though I wish JoAnn could spend more than a couple of days here.  It’s rare that one can walk in the past of 40 years ago and still meet and talk with friends and people that have never left.

Good or bad, it’s a grounding.