Little Mountain

 

Abbeville, South Carolina, nestled between the state capital, Columbia and the piedmont of Greenville, is rich with history but being a kid growing up there in the fifties through the seventies, I didn’t exactly appreciate the significance of my heritage so to speak. I had more important fish to fry, enjoying life, taking risks on the wild side and creating my very own tiny town theatrics. Sure, the ole home town was the birth place and death bed of the confederacy but what did that really mean to me.  What did I really know or care about the southern states succeeding from the Union, Succession Hill signifying the meeting place where the premise evolved? The most important event in my life had to be the end of another school year and summer adventures tugging at my cut-off jeans.

To put things in perspective for the generation of couch bound, video game savvy kids lacking imagination, vitality and the gumption to venture outside and embrace what life has to offer, we mostly invented ways to entertain ourselves.  Baseball, basketball or backyard football could only hold our attention for so long during those long summer days, before we were bored and yearning for that dare factor, to go where no kids had gone before us.  It was always outside for us; don’t even think about making us come inside. We’d fight our parents tooth and claw for the right to push the limits of dark thirty. Sorry, dark thirty is that time of the day just before darkness falls.  It can’t be found on the face of a clock but trust me; everyone back in my day knew the significance of the setting sun.

One of our favorite summer pastimes had to be quenching the oppressive humidity any which way we could. Sometimes this was accomplished via the oscillating sprinkler watering the yard connected to the hose pipe.  Sorry, southern slang, hose pipe is garden hose to those not privy to the lingo of my time. Running though the fan tailed spray, jumping through the water, kept us quite satisfied and momentarily entertained.  The Slip and Slide was the ultimate adventure. The long roll out of durable plastic, affixed to the hose pipe, with water spurting from tiny holes,; all one would have to do is get a running start on the grass then belly or butt flop on to the slick surface and ride her to the end. 

Sadly, one cannot live by sprinkler or Slip and Slide alone.  Water cost money and the meter was running as long as the water was flushing through that hose.  Money doesn’t grow on trees; our parents would constantly remind us. What that had to do with staying cool lost something in translation for us.  Swimming pools, other than at the recreation center, were virtually unheard of back in the land before time.   A few legendary paddle pools existed, so I’ve heard.  I had one, once upon a time, maybe 8 x 8 feet and two feet deep filled to the brim, but even this was a big deal for the gill-less fish we were. My Granny had a concrete pool at the bottom of the hill in her backyard.  It required clogging the drain with a rag or whatever we could find to plug it, filling her up with a hose pipe and then enjoying the water until it became too filthy and then you drained it, maybe.

Not to worry, we had Little Mountain Lake, just down the Cedar Springs Road from Hunter Street where I lived.  The actual name was Parsons Mountain, the highest point around, peaking at 832 feet. It was a little mountain, that’s how we came to call it thusly. It was originally named after Mr. James Parsons back in 1772 and gold was even discovered there in the 1800’s. It’s now part of the Sumter National Forest.  For our purposes, it had a lake that was constructed there in the 1940’s. If we were fortunate and with a tad of luck tossed in, our parents, grandparents or some family member would load up a slew of us kids and take us to our swimming hole.  We thought this water paradise was enormous and in a kid’s eyes it was. Visiting there as an adult, it more resembles an oversized pond now.  The eye is in the beholder and back then, we were beholding to the adventure and time spent there.

Hiking the winding dirt and gravel road to the top of our little mountain highlighted many trips there.  It was our very own Mount Everest. There on the top rested the ranger’s lookout tower, but I’ll get to that shortly. Along the way, on the opposite side of our lake’s designated swimming area was the dam and spillway. No, this was not of Hoover proportions, nowhere close as a matter of fact. Heck, none of us had seen a real dam so again, eye of the beholder. Further up the winding road, Lost Lake was a place of interest, maybe not for us as kids, but the teenagers were drawn to the secluded mud hole like flies. It was a favorite parking spot for making out and making ones fantasies come true. It would grow on us later and we too would eventually appreciate its significance, older and wiser as they say. A similar place existed closer to town, just off the 28 bypass, ‘The Beach’, a place where fill dirt was excavated down the end of a secluded road.  Well, not too secluded, because everyone knew where it was located.

Before reaching the tower, we had to pass the old gold mines. Yes, these were genuine gold mines, three of them long ago deserted. These weren’t clearly marked so you had to know where to go. We did. Two were surrounded by a fence and the third was a slanted hole into the ground, the entrance caved in with no opportunity for spelunkers. Each visit was marred with dares. Climb the fence and see how far you can go. We were all daredevils back then but none of us were quite that stupid.  An obvious entry way didn’t exist so climbing the fence really served no purpose. Sure, we talked up gold prospecting but what did really know about generating our very own gold rush. Just the same it was fun going there. Now they are marked as part of the Tower Trail.

The tower, now that was our Holy Grail. Negotiating the long incline to the tower to us was like ascending Mount Everest. Once we arrived, there rested the ranger station at the top, resembling our very own Eiffel Tower. Next dare, who’s going to the top of the tower? Really there was no risk, steps extended to the ranger platform.  The doorway to the inside of the station was padlocked so you could only ascend to the section just below it. From there the view was breathtaking. We were on top of the world, standing there at the highest point of our Little Mountain.  Etching our names in the metal framework at the top was mired in tradition and marked our territory, our testament that we had completed the climb. You could always count on one scribbling; Kilroy Was Here, a bald-headed man (sometimes depicted as having a few hairs) with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with the fingers of each hand clutching the wall. The doodle supposedly originated during World War II and was graffiti associated with GIs.  You could find it on most any bathroom wall or in out of the way places. Of course other inscriptions contained profanity and brought about bursts of laughter from us, taboo as it was.

Little Mountain was not just reserved for kid adventures. Some involved partnering up with adults. If you have to, you have to. One particular tradition was our version of a hayride. Papa or daddy always needed pine needles. What better place to collect this bounty than the pine forest of Sumter National Park. It was free after all and child labor laws weren’t enforced in Abbeville County. A bunch of us would pile into the bed of papa’s 1961 Apache 10 Chevy pickup truck, securing the rakes with our bodies and we were off to collect pine needles.  This was yet just one more creative game for our wild imaginations. Raking was not fun but the real fun hinged on us filling the bed of that truck. Once it reached the height of the cab we were done. We then became kid tarps, brought along to secure the load. We embraced our job seriously; well, maybe not seriously but mashing down those needles and wallowing in them brought sparkles to our eyes.  Let the hayride begin.  In a less stressful time, no one ever considered riding in the back of pick-ups; the bed certified the passengers as human projectiles. This was life before seatbelts or other restraints.  A kid had the freedom to roam anywhere in a vehicle, unrestricted, often landing in the lap of the driver and helping them navigate.  My favorite spot when I was small enough was stretching out on the platform in the back window. Cars had child size shelves just above the back seat in the day when you could tell a Chevy from a Ford. Life was good.

Sometimes we would venture to Sumter National Forest in search of an elusive plant. We became medicine men in the Amazon jungles, seeking some sort magical cure for what ails you. Actually we had no idea why we were looking for this plant. My black mama, Anise, my second mama, the one who kept me in check while my parents worked the second shift @ Milliken textile mill, required this plant, so enough said.  Looking back, I think this was some sort of Ginseng. She supposedly made tea from the reddish root, it having some sort of healing and curative properties. As an adult, one of my coworkers referred to it as Bo-hog root and he said it was used for sexual enhancement purposes; home remedy Viagra maybe. Either way, it was a game of see how many we good find.  It secured us another ride in the back of Papa’s Chevy as he would bring her and us to forest.

Further down the Cedar Springs Road stood what we considered to be a genuine haunted house, the octagon shaped Frazier-Pressley House, but I will save that one for another chapter, a more teenager version of life in Abbeville. We definitely upped the ante as we reached our adolescence, becoming more creative, our innovation peaking new levels, once we could now drive.  No longer handicapped by someone else getting us to where we wanted to go or possibly places we should ever go; we took many a peek inside Pandora’s Box and for the most part survived our experiences unscathed.  It wasn’t from lack of effort, pushing the envelope.  Parents don’t need to know everything, right?  What happens on our mountain; well you know how it goes.