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  • Writer's pictureScott Johnson

Big Jackie Boy

Updated: Jul 20, 2022

As many of you know, my Daddy was the Scoutmaster for Troop 625 in Bennettsville, SC from 1979-88, and he built quite the reputation for being tough yet loving. We viewed him as "one of us" and he delighted in our acceptance of him as a peer but we also had great respect for him. He was the kind of guy that loved giving back to the community and sharing his knowledge and skill. I don't recall who hung the moniker of "Big Jackie Boy" on him, but Daddy reveled in it. He had a leather belt with "Big Jackie Boy" stamped into it along with the BSA "Fleur De Lis" and he wore it with pride. "Jackie Boy", or "JB" for short was often ill-tempered and short-fused but I have known few men with such a big heart as his.

Daddy and Mamma took over Sandifer Furniture in 1978 when my Grandfather William Preston "WP" Sandifer retired and made a valiant effort to turn a profit in the face of a horrible economy brought to the United States by Jimmy Carter. 1979 was even worse with unemployment rising to 6.9% across the nation and closer to 20% in Marlboro County. We watched as local businesses closed, saw farms go under and I'll never forget the local farming community participating in "Tractorcade" by driving tractors into town in protest of Carter's refusal to stop the Farmer's Home Administration from preventing foreclosures on American farms that were suffering due to yet another Democratic Administration taxing the middle class into oblivion. Times were hard on our rural, Agrarian-based economy to say the least.

We had a "Family Pow-Wow" one sad night in 1979 where Daddy announced that we, the Johnson Family, were officially insolvent of funds and that the old belt was going to be tightened. All frivolous expenditures would be halted, including cablevision (surprisingly, Bennettsville had cable long before it was fashionable, albeit only 12 channels). We would be wearing hand-me-downs, there would be no bicycles at Christmas and we could expect to eat lots of "Cowboy Stew" and Spaghetti. "Cowboy Stew" was a creation of my Mother to feed three hungry teenagers on a budget and was pretty much Spaghetti sauce with carrots, onions and ground beef. It wasn't half-bad when consumed with toast and was rich in Beta Carotenes. We all developed a healthy orange glow in 1979 due to copious amounts of "Cowboy Stew"!

Daddy had a friend....Ed Powell....that owned a local hobby store, "Aero Hobbies and Crafts" and his store was a victim of the Carter economy, and shuttered sometime in 79. Daddy saw an opportunity to add a little extra to the stock at Sandifer Furniture and bought a bunch of Ed's remaining stock. We had plastic model kits, model rockets, balsa wood model kits, paint, glue, craft supplies and enough rocket motors to start World War Three. I remember being so excited over the pile of hobby items down in the basement of the store and the fun we had creating displays of hobby items inside the store.

A few weeks before Christmas 1979 one of the customers of Sandifer Furniture and a former co-worker of Daddy at Becker Sand and Gravel lost everything in a house fire. To make matters worse, Roosevelt Bridges had been laid off by Becker just before the fire. Roosevelt was a good man who worked hard for his family. He was a huge black man that about the size of John Coffey from "The Green Mile" and his nickname was "Scrap Iron". He would entertain the guys in the locomotive shop at Becker by picking a Chevrolet six-cylinder motor up off the shop floor and taking five steps with it.

Ole "Scrap" was good to the three of us boys and would build us "Acetylene Cannons" whenever we would visit the shop at the Brownsville plant. He would weld a piece of plate steel to close up one end of a 2" diameter piece of black iron pipe, drill a small hole near the sealed end and then chuck it up in a vise on a shop table. He would then take the cutting torch, light it and adjust the oxygen and acetylene valves until the bright blue flame was just right and made the proper hissing noise, then put the tip down onto the table to extinguish the flame with a curious "pop". Once it was out, he would quickly place the tip down into the open end of the cannon and count to ten, then remove it. He would relight the torch and wave it past the small drilled hole and ignite the fuel/oxygen mixture inside the cannon and the loud "Boom" would ring your ears and the concussion would shake dust off every surface in the shop. He would then admonish the three of us boys to never attempt such a feat unless we knew how to properly handle a torch, and then gave us lessons on how to cut steel with fire, and how to clean a dirty cutting tip by passing it along a piece of pallet wood. We thought he was the greatest person we had ever met!

One evening in November 1979 Daddy told me that he needed my help after our supper of "Cowboy Stew" and we got into the tired old 67 Ford F-100 with the "GE" logos on the side and drove down to the furniture store, circling around "The Gulf" to the basement door of the store. Daddy unlocked the giant metal sliding door (Sandifer Furniture was on a slope that comprised "Hospital Hill" in Bennettsville. It was a three-story building with the storefront opening onto Market Street and the basement was on Ballpark Street), and slid it open. We loaded some used furniture into the old truck along with a bunch of model kits, paint and craft kits into the bed of the truck, then he slid the door shut and secured it with the heavy chain and padlock. I asked Daddy what we were doing this for and he replied "Son, there are many people less fortunate than us, and we are about to receive a blessing that will last longer than you can imagine".

Daddy eased the old Ford away from the store and carefully navigated it down East Main Street to a ramshackle little shotgun house on Burchill Street. He stopped in front of the house and backed it up to the cinder block steps of the house then got out and rapped on the door. Ole "Scrap Iron" appeared in the doorway and completely blocked the light as he and Daddy talked for a minute. Daddy motioned for me to get out, and the three of us silently unloaded the furniture and toys from the bed of the truck.

The inside of the rental house was sparse and smelled of fried fatback. Sitting on the floor were six kids ranging from ten years to six months and the image was reminiscent of depression-era photographs I had seen in school textbooks. We finished the task and I watched as Daddy and Roosevelt both erupted into tears, as did his gracious wife. Scrap Iron crossed the room and swooped me up in his huge arms and nearly squeezed the breath out of me and whispered into my ear "Boy, your Daddy is one great man!" I replied "I think so, too" and he put me back down, his eyes glistening and a huge grin on his face.

We made the return to 105 S. Cook Street in silence, neither of us uttering one word until we pulled into the driveway. Daddy then spoke up...."Son, life ain't fair. I want you to remember that. Bad things can happen to good people, and good people are there to help when bad things happen". Christmas 1979 was pretty sparse, but it was the greatest Christmas that I can recall. Have a rice day, y'all.

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