If you saw me between the ages of three and 18 there is a distinct possibility that you also saw a red haired kid with freckles that had as goofy of a grin as my own. Of course, since I said "Red haired kid with freckles" you, astute reader of my ramblings, already know of whom I speak! Bennettsville, SC in the 1970s didn't have too many folks to fit that bill....but the family that resided at 811 N. Marlboro Street had a house full of that red hair!
Of course, I am referring to the Rowe family. Allen was the younger of the two Rowe kids, and was my Bee-Bud number one chum for fifteen years. We were inseparable in the old days and every Friday night involved a sleepover at either his or our house. Mama always joked that she had to sweep the freckles out of the bed after Allen had spent the night with us!
Saturdays were full of adventure when Allen was around. We would plod down to Ed's Hobby Shop and purchase the little 25 cent balsa wood planes that were powered by a rubber band and spend the afternoon flying them in the Murchison School yard...or until one landed on the roof of the gym or in a huge tree in the yard. I now know the Genus and Species of that tree, it is the dreaded Balsawoodus Eatemupus which is also known outside the model aviation circle as a Live Oak.
We also pedaled bicycles all over town and loved to go visit his Aunt up at the Plaza building on Market Street so we could sneak out back and slide like firemen down a drainpipe that ran down the side of the building (a thirty foot slide!), never once thinking we could hurt ourselves. The Plaza building was right beside my Grandfather's furniture store so that when the excitement died down at the Plaza we would just move next door and find new methods of entertainment at Sandifer Furniture. It also helped that Pop-Pop and "Gorgeous" Gant kept the 1935 GE refrigerator in the office stocked with ice-cold Pepsi and we drank our share of them.
Allen came over one day for a "pen the night" party as Mama called it, and we decided to camp in the backyard for the evening (remember doing that?). We set up the tent, procured all the camping gear we could muster and started laying out plans for the night. Oh, this was going to be fun! There was a Gulf service station on the corner of S Cook Street and Main Street that Billy Jackson ran, and there was an old Willys jeep of probably Korean War vintage sitting on the concrete beside one of the service bays and we determined that it would be the target of our commando raid when it got dark!
After Mama had served us copious amounts of "Cowboy Stew" Allen and I retired to our campsite we had laid out in the soft grass behind the basketball goal and fidgeted around until it was dark enough for us to commence the raid. We giggled, told tall tales and did what ten-year old boys do...smell terrible and laugh! Daddy came out to check on us as it got dark and we assured him we would be okay. Daddy was a veteran of our back-yard campouts and he knew all occupants of tents would be in the house, sound asleep long before midnight! He bid us farewell and left us to our plans.
After what seemed like an eternity it finally got dark enough for us to sneak down and get a close look at the jeep. We slipped down the street, stealthily slid around the back of the Gulf, halting just short of the edge of the service bay to reconnoiter the scene. Forty feet away, in the pale silver moonlight that amplified shadows into indistinguishable shapes sat the jeep.
There are quite a few things that made ten-year-old boys hearts race with excitement and one of those things was anything military! We slowly approached the jeep, admiring the military stenciled letters, the US Army star on the side, the jerry cans secured to the back and that whip antenna that looked to be twenty feet long with the tip secured in a bracket on the front left fender. It was a sight to behold, and there was but one thing we could do at the time. Allen made the dare..."you are a cowardly yellow-bellied dunce if you don't get in it" he said!
I had honor and respect back then.....I couldn't let a dare like that go unchallenged! I said "Okay, but you are coming in with me, Buster!" Slowly, we tried the door handles and to our amazement, they were unlocked! We piled in, closed the doors and bam! We were instantly in North Africa, chasing Rommel and his Panzer tank division across the sand dunes of Tunisia just like those boys in the TV show "Rat Patrol". I was in the driver's seat, fondling the big steering wheel and making motor noises while Allen was manning the imaginary twin .50 caliber machine guns and blasting a pursuing band of Jerry troops when a car careened into the lot. Oh, fuuuuudge!
Petrified with fright, Allen and I watched as the door to the car opened and someone got out. We whispered out an escape plan while the car sat, idling with a curious "Loompa loompa loompa" emanating from it. We would slowly open the passenger side door, simultaneously slide out and make a doubletime hump back to the tent in the back yard and avoid the huge trouble we had found ourselves in the midst of.
We quietly counted "One...Two...Three!" and sprang out of the jeep like two coiled springs, and flew all the way back to the tent, arriving with short breath and that curious "buttermilk" taste in our mouths which was a combination of physical effort and adrenaline.
Curiosity got the best of us, so when our pulse and our breathing returned to normal we decided to sneak back to the Gulf to see what kind of trouble we had stirred up. I was fully expecting to see a Bennettsville Police Department patrol car there with blue lights flashing but instead the car, a Pontiac LeMans, was still there making the "loompa loompa loompa" noise. All of a sudden the car peeled out, nearly causing a coronary event in my chest! It sped off down East Main Street and disappeared into the night, never to be seen again.
Allen and I decided that we had tempted fate enough for one night, and we made our way back to 105 S Cook Street where we flopped down on our sleeping bags and laughed ourselves silly. We were so relieved to NOT be in trouble that we took a vow to NEVER breathe a word of the incident, and drifted off to sleep where we dreamed of our own jeep and the battles we would have with the Desert Fox.
Allen, thank you for being a huge part of who I am now. You once remarked on my good memory. Let me be the first to tell you.....with so many good memories (and there are thousands upon thousands of good memories!) courtesy of you and your family they are all easy to remember. I'll love you forever, ole chum!