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OURHAMLET.ORG |
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A place for you to share memories and information on the history and happenings of Hamlet, NC. |
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THE OLD SWIMMING HOLE When I was just a lad, about twelve or thirteen, I nearly drowned in our ol' swimmin' hole. We lived about a mile south of Hamlet on Lackey Street extension (we never could force ourselves to say Bridges Street extension, as it was shown on the map.) About a quarter-mile directly behind our house, beyond the Seaboard Air Line main track to Cheraw and through the woods, was a small pond the local boys - and sometimes an adventurous girl or two! - used to swim in. It could also be reached by going south on Rice Street or maybe Champlain Street, out past the old Moncure Hospital and down the hill on an old sandy pig-path of a road. It was generally accepted that the property was owned by a Mr. Liles who owned a grocery store on the south end of Lackey Street so we called the place Liles' Lake. In the distant past there had been a two room bath house with a window for selling snacks and collecting swimming fees but hard times had come and the lake had been abandoned as a money making enterprise. The property had fallen into a sad state of disrepair; the bath house doors had long since disappeared, the dam was in a bad state of erosion, and the spillway boards had either rotted away or had been pulled out. The lake was now nothing more than a glorified stream; still, the water was nearly five feet deep at the spillway. The water was clear and cold over a clean, sandy bottom. Over the years the dam had badly eroded and had slid down into the lake, creating a sloping shelf just in front of it. But, despite the neglect and subsequent erosion, the dam was still high enough to provide a launching pad for shallow diving if we had a fast running start and leapt far enough to enter deep water. That little pond was almost the exclusive domain of the kids that lived out "in the country," the Osburns and the Heltons and the young black boys from the Bridges Street neighborhood. Only occasionally would any of the "city boys" venture out. On the day that I almost lost my life some of the "city boys" had made their way out, including my classmate, James Moon. Of course, a little rivalry soon developed and each group, "city boys" and "country boys," were determined to show their best dives. One of my dives proved to be too steep and too short. My head hit the soft bottom of the slope and there I was, feet and ankles sticking out of the water, thrashing about, unable to dislodge my head from the gook. It seemed an eternity before I felt someone grab my legs and pull me free. James Moon had seen that I wasn't fooling around and jumped in and saved my bacon! After a short time we were frolicking as before. I doubt if any of the other boys realized what had just happened, or, if they did, thought no more of it than someone falling off a bike. After all, when we were young we thought we were indestructible, brushing off cuts and bruises as nothing more than mere annoyances. James Moon has probably forgotten that day, but I haven't. If not for him I probably wouldn't be here today. James, if you read this, here is a thank you that is nearly 50 years late. Bruce Osburn 12 - 1 - 1999 HANGING OUT TIME .....young years in Hamlet ca. 1948-1953 by: Bruce Osburn In summer 1947 my dad retired from the Army at Fort Bragg, NC. He bought 14 acres of wooded property south of Hamlet, NC, on Lackey St. extension and set about building a house. In January, 1948, his task completed, he brought my mom and three youngest children to our new home and we settled in. Mom had grown up in the sandhills so we had plenty of family there to welcome us - aunts, uncles and cousins. That was a great place for young boys to grow. There were plenty of swampy areas for playing "Tarzan" or "Jungle Jim," lots of old cotton fields and corn fields for getting up a game of cowboys and Indians. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and their partners rode many a dusty mile in those fields dodging bullets from the bad guys. The same fields were, on at least two or three occasions, football arenas with hotly contested games with me and two or three of my buddies against the boys from Bridges Street neighborhood. Those weren't sissy type touch games with helmets and pads. No sir! They were pile-on, mash-your-head-in-the-dirt tackle games, with a few inside punches slipped in for good measure. Have you ever rolled on the ground in a corn field that has had the stalks cut for fodder? Those little six-inch stubs could inflict some terrible pain! Those games were so rough you didn't want to have that football in your hands! No way! There were more laterals and fumbles than the law allows! There were a few bloody noses and scrapes and bruises but it was all in fun and no one was the worse for it. We country boys could walk home down Bridges St. without fear of being ambushed. Arrow heads could be found in freshly plowed fields and especially in "new ground," an area that had had its old growth timber harvested and then plowed under, such as our property. The arrow heads were more plentiful there and often we founf shards of pottery. I had, at one time, an old shoe box nearly full of arrow heads and pottery. My classmate and friend, Al Horton, saw them one day and expressed an interest, picking them up and admiring them. So, what did I do? I gave them to him! The whole kit and caboodle! Never to see them again! I hope Al's kids still have them; they represent many a furrow walked with bent head and toes kicking clods! Many years later, after I had reached adulthood, married and with a family of my own, I was reminiscing with my mom about the great number of Indian artifacts we children had found on our property. Well, yes, she said, she thought there might have been an Indian village there in the old days. She then asked if I remembered a slight rise in the ground out in the pines that looked out of place. Yes, but I had not given it much thought. She then said she thought that it was an Indian burial ground. When I asked why she hadn't told me when we lived there she simply said, "Because I knew you would dig into it." Ah, the wisdom of our parents! We should all be like them! Our neighbors, the Heltons, had several children, two of them boys just a couple years younger than me. Howard and Larry were my constant companions. We played together, smoked cigarettes and fought amongst ourselves - usually them against me. However, we were the best of friends and helped one another with our chores so that we could have more hanging out time. That hanging out time allowed us to develop our childhood survival skills and explore the surrounding wilderness. We knew where the best pond for swimming was (Liles' Lake was the best overall; our pond and the one just down the road a piece were too dirty and heavily infested with lily pads, plus a considerable population of moccasins.) We learned which tree limb had the best fork for making sling shots (the dogwood,) where to find the most wild grapes when they became ripe (the swampy area directly across the road from Mr. Hadley's chicken house,) which trees were the most supple for swinging from tree-top to tree-top (those that didn't break were best, no matter what the species!) how best to attach boards to a tree to make a tree house (don't use short nails,) which limb made the best bow (one you could bend was ideal,) how to find out if a train was coming by putting an ear to the track (we never did get that one down pat, so we just looked up and down the track,) plus other necessary skills that made a boy a boy, things that would make Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn proud. We even learned how to hot-wire our 1946 Chevy pickup truck so we could drive through the fields to the corner store. (My brother Gene, 3 years older than me, didn't like that at all, but mom told him if he would leave the key at home instead of taking it with him all the time I wouldn't have to hot-wire it. Hurrah! A victory for me!) We found treasures just about wherever we went; small pieces of petrified wood, (man, you're crazy, that ain't wood, that's a rock,) old snake skins (more than a few times real live water moccasins,) turtles (a decomposed turtle's shell made an excellent helmet for a dog or cat,) frogs (big bull frogs had tasty hind legs; we even heard that people paid good money for them in restaurants) and rough, round, hollow rocks. Those rocks were of various sizes, some as small as marbles and some as big as golf balls. We called them "pop-rocks" because when tossed into a fire they sometimes would explode after fifteen or twenty minutes. Sometimes we threw them at birds or any other animal within range. Other times we just smashed them. Inside was a rust colored powdery substance which we were convinced the Indians used for making their war paint. Even though we were never able to make a suitable paste for painting our own faces we just explained that away by saying we didn't know the secret for proper mixing. (Decades later I learned the rocks were called geodes.) Yes, growing up in Hamlet was an exciting and adventurous period in my young life. I lived in four states and attended 12 schools - two in Hamlet - before I graduated high school and, of all the places I lived, not one has memories so lasting as those made in Hamlet. Bruce Osburn 12-7-1999 WILD MAN OF BORNEO ....a terrifying day at the fair ca. 1948 by: Bruce Osburn One day I was at the carnival that usually set up for a week in the fall of the year at Hamlet fairgrounds. That was an event this ten-year-old kid had anxiously looked forward to, saving my pennies and nickels and dimes, awaiting my one or two visits to see the wonders of the carnival midway. On this day I was with an uncle about sixteen years of age. I don't remember how we got there or if anyone else went with us for that is not the memory that has remained with me all these years. What has remained with me fifty years or so is a memory of an event I have told and retold countless times - all at the expense of my uncle. That event was our encounter with the Wild Man of Borneo. We were making our rounds of the side shows - fat lady, tattooed lady, sword swallower and others - when we found ourselves at the exhibit for the Wild Man from Borneo. Now, that man must have been ferocious for we could hear him growling and howling clear out on the midway. But, inside the tent, the dim light made it difficult to see where he was. We saw a group of kids, some on their tip-toes, looking over a canvas barrier at something not visible to us. We cautiously approached the barrier and there, sitting on the ground, we saw him! Behind the barrier, safely and securely separated from us by strong canvas and a fishing net thrown over horizontal poles, was the Wild Man from Borneo! Oh! What a fearful sight! A savage looking man with long, black, matted hair down to his shoulders. There were big, fat snakes all around him, some even crawling across his legs! And he just sat there with a dead, headless chicken in his hand, paying those big ol' snakes no mind at all! Oh, that savage must have been in terrible pain 'cause he kept growling and shaking that dead chicken at us. Suddenly he sprang from the ground and charged right up to the barrier! All of us screamed and ran for the exit but that ol' Wild Man couldn't bust out 'cause he was behind that strong canvas and net cage! So he just stood there, fully upright among the snakes, with his head and shoulders pushed tightly against the fishing net. He stuck the dead chicken's neck into his mouth and took a bite - Crunch!! After a couple of times nearly escaping and scaring the bejeeze out of us kids, the unimaginable happened - the barrier collapsed and he was free! Free! Right there amongst us, out of his cage and threatening to eat us! In a flash I was at the tent flap with the rest of the terrified kids and turned around to look for my uncle. Poor guy! He was just standing there, petrified, unable to move. Well, that ol' Wild Man saw my uncle standing there and charged him, growling and making frightful noises. He charged right up to my uncle who instinctively did the only thing he knew to do - he smacked that ol' Wild Man square in the face with a punch only a scared kid could throw, knocking him onto his kiester! My uncle's feet finally took flight and he ran from the tent, saying to me as we made our escape, "That ol' Wild Man near 'bout got me but I whopped'im a good'un up side 'is head!" Oh, the perils of a kid growing up! If the boogerman doesn't get you, the Wild Man of Borneo will! Bruce Osburn 12-12-1999 There was an ice cream plant on Bridges Street in Hamlet that provided jobs for some of the local people, one of them being an uncle and another one a cousin. Uncle Lawrence Fisher was there before we moved to Hamlet in 1948, working in the boiler room. Cousin Jack Patrick was a route salesman or some such position. And after my sister Ginger graduated Hamlet High in 1949 she worked there for a short time before joining the Air Force. Buttercup was the premier ice cream in our area, at least with the folks of Hamlet. I think it was much preferred over the more widely known brands of much larger ice cream makers and it was easily recognizable with its familiar yellow buttercup flower imprinted on each container. Sales must have been good because the company was in existence for several decades. But what I remember most about Buttercup was not its contribution to the community as an employer but how it affected my family for a brief two years or so, events that were sanctioned by management, examples of Buttercup generosity that few are aware. We kids were always glad to see uncle Lawrence and aunt Cecil come to visit. Their visits meant more ice cream for the refrigerator freezer, small as it was. (Hardly anyone had a bigggg freezer, like today). Uncle Lawrence didn't buy the ice cream, he simply picked it from the loading floor and took it home. It wasn't stealing; it was simply salvaging that which was going to be thrown away. Those were the days (at least at Buttercup) before conveyor belts, forklifts or roller wheel loading conveyors. The route drivers loaded their trucks with help from plant personnel, tossing the packaged ice cream, which usually contained 24 itemstper package, from man to man until the truck was loaded. During loading some of the packages were dropped, hitting the floor and damaging the contents. The damage wasn't so great as to ruin the entire contents, just a few bars or cups or sandwiches. But rather than ripping the packages open and saving the undamaged items and then repackaging, it was cheaper to simply toss the damaged goods into a 55-gallon barrel for later disposal. So, that was what uncle Lawrence brought to our house - goods that were being trashed. There were fudgesicles, push-ups, dreamsicles, ice cream sandwiches, nickel cups, dime cups, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, pints, half gallons, anything that would fit into a little bitty freezer. We had no favorites, anything was fine. And so it was with the local boys that came to visit. They always managed to eat their fill and mom didn't care, because if the freezer became bare uncle Lawrence and aunt Cecil would bring more any time she wanted it. Uncle Lawrence and dad saw an opportunity to make some money from all that wasted ice cream. Uncle Lawrence got permission to remove the 55-gallon barrels when they became full, which would be as many as six or eight barrels a week. Dad fenced in about three or four acres of land, turned loose a gang of feeder pigs, and he and uncle Lawrence were now in the pig farming business! Sometimes there were up to twenty or thirty pigs running there from late summer to spring, all fed on ice cream! They got no corn, no slop, no dry feed, no nothing, just ice cream! Dad would go to Buttercup and pick up three or four barrels of discarded goods, bring them home and mix water with the ice cream, creating giant 55-gallon milkshakes! The pigs were fed with this liquid - sticks, paper and all! Somehow they managed to spit out what was not edible, gained weight and became so fat that there was no way they could "make it through the heat of summer." Consequently, all the fattened pigs were taken to market in late spring (I believe at Aberdeen, NC, just up the road a piece,) most of them weighing in at 500 to 600 pounds. The adults often remarked that they were some sorry hogs, not worth a fritter, good for nothing more than making lard and fatback, not a streak of lean in them anywhere! But, all in all, they brought a pretty good price at market and were a good source of income. Another resource at Buttercup began to find its way to our place. The boiler there was coal fired and made a lot of clinkers, some of which could be put to good use on our roadway. We had a pond in front of our house and our access road passed on top of the dam. As a matter of routine maintenance we three brothers had to haul dirt from a back field and fill the potholes and washouts there. This wasn't a desired task, especially if you had more important things to do, such as hanging out with your buddies. Uncle Lawrence made a deal with a worker at Buttercup that did away with most of our dirt hauling chore. The worker was to haul clinkers as needed to our dam in return for fishing privileges. Now, our pond might have been dirty and not fit for swimming, but it had plenty of catfish, some weighing two pounds or more. I remember the first load of clinkers delivered to our place. Up the road I saw a giant of a black man, walking beside a goat drawn wagon! That's right! Goats! Mr. John Bankhead was bringing us a load of clinkers! Not as many as could be loaded onto a pickup truck, but, all in all, quite a load for two billy goats (it could have been four goats.) John Bankhead brought many loads of clinkers to our dam and spread them. And he caught a lot of catfish for his labor. Many times he came out just before dark, set four, six, or more poles into the side of the dam, lit his flambeau to keep off the skeeters, sat back and waited for the fish to bite. John Bankhead became a friend to this young boy. We had lots of conversations while sitting together on the dam waiting for the fish to bite, about things I can't remember now but they must have been important when I was a kid. (I have heard that his real name was John Bethune, but for some reason or other everyone called him John Bankhead). My youngest brother Kenny and I thought nothing was wrong with poking around in trash piles to see what treasures they held. One day while going through trash at the Buttercup plant we found what we thought was the answer to our lack of store bought toys and other boy stuff. Buttercup produced frozen treats marketed under the Popsicle trademark and Popsicle had a program to get more of a little boy's money by offering a coupon redemption scheme. A kid could send in ten Popsicle wrappers (or coupons or whatever was required) and fifteen cents and get a gen-u-wine compass for finding his way out of the woods. Or fifty wrappers and $1.00 for a real, two bladed jack knife. (My recollection of the number of wrappers and the amount of cash is suspect, but you get the idea, the larger the prize, the more wrappers and cash that was required.) But here's where the good part comes in; if a kid didn't have any cash he could send all coupons and get an item. That little compass could go for about fifty coupons and no cash. And that knife could be his for two-hundred fifty coupons and no cash. (Here again the number of coupons is in doubt, fuzzy memory you see, but you get the idea.) Kenny and I found in Buttercup's trash that day the mother lode of treasure! There, amongst all the office trash, were hundreds upon hundreds of Popsicle wrappers! There were thousands! All neatly bundled in packages weighing about one or two pounds each, just as they had been shipped from the printer. We determined the only reason they were there was because the packages were soiled, a little wet and sticking together just a bit. But surely they were fit for getting prizes so we grabbed as many packages as we could carry and made our way home down Bridges Street. At home we began to make our decision as to what prize we wanted. Would it be a bowie knife in a sheath, or a foot ball, or a baseball glove or maybe something bigger? Why not all of them!? We certainly had enough wrappers and it wouldn't cost us a cent. As we made our plans to have more boy stuff than anyone in the neighborhood nagging little thoughts began to plague us. We knew that Popsicle expected kids to buy one of their treats in order to get one wrapper. So it seemed to us that Popsicle expected a kid to spend a nickel for every wrapper he collected. But we hadn't bought those wrappers, we had found them. Would they become suspicious about so many absolutely flat, clean wrappers? Would we get into trouble for not buying all those wrappers? Our mom's carefully instilled values began to influence our decision making; her "don't steal, don't take something that doesn't belong to you" won out. Kenny and I destroyed all those wrappers and went back to being just normal kids without any store bought stuff. Yes sir! Buttercup Ice Cream tasted good; to us kids, and to our pigs! Bruce Osburn 12-14-1999 THE GRAPE TREE ....encounter in the woods ca. 1948-1952 by: Bruce Osburn Wild grapes abounded in the woods surrounding Hamlet during my young years. In late August and into mid-September they ripened into a sweet, juicy fruit much sought after by birds, 'possums, 'coons and tree climbing young boys. They could be found almost everywhere - on old fences, fallen down barns and outbuildings - anywhere critters were likely to have dropped a seed. Our favorite spot for finding grapes was near the south side of Hamlet - that low, swampy area sandwiched between Lackey Street extension and the Seaboard Air Line tracks running to the south. Of course, my buddies and I didn't have to find the grapes, we already knew where they were from previous years for we had gorged ourselves many times during the short two to three week period the grapes were ripe. Most people think that grapes grow on vines but the grapes in our neighborhood grew in trees. When we went out for grapes we didn't go to a grapevine or a grape arbor, we went to a grape tree. But yes, of course, our grape trees had to have vines and, where they emerged from the ground, some were as big as the upper arms of small boys. Those vines had reached up into the trees when they were just sprouts and now they covered a goodly portion of the woods - on lower branches, middle branches and clear to the tops of the trees. And even though perfectly good grapes could be found at ground level my buddies and I knew for certain that the biggest and juiciest ones were to be found way up in the trees. But that presented a problem - how to get there? Well, heck, there was only one way - shinny up a tree. Some trees were more suited for climbing than others. A pine tree was not considered to be a good tree; the bark was rough, pine sap got on us and the pine needles poked us in the eyes! A poplar tree was great for climbing but offered no good place for sitting because the limbs were of a skinny nature and made our keisters ache after a short time. So, we learned to alternately stand and sit, one hand for holding onto the tree and one hand for picking grapes. Once we were safely up in the limbs of the trees we could easily spend thirty minutes or more picking and spitting, moving from tree to tree Tarzan style. But it wasn't all fun and games; sometimes we had to pick a gallon or so of grapes for our mothers, who would make grape jelly or jam. This was considered an unpleasant chore and was not good hanging out time. Selecting and eating those little orbs of fruit was an art in itself because not all grapes were fit to eat. There were some that had not turned the desired shade of black and were not sweet. And there were some that had been ripe too long and had begun to shrivel and turn sour. Those were the ones we didn't even waste time picking. We went for the ones that were just right - plump, black and juicy. And once we had them between our lips another skill was necessary in order to get the full enjoyment of that little fruit. After I had plucked that little delectable morsel I took it between a thumb and forefinger and placed it between my lips. Next, a gentle squeeze of thumb and forefinger popped the pulp from the hull into my mouth and slightly more pressure of thumb and forefinger on the hull extracted the remaining juice. (The last two steps required a slight sucking effort, something akin to sucking a long piece of spaghetti from a dinner plate). After the pulp was safely inside my mouth I squeezed it with my tongue against the roof of my mouth to remove the seeds, which were then expelled with great velocity at a buddy if one was nearby. After getting rid of the seeds it was safe to swallow and begin the evolution over again, which an experienced kid could do in four to five seconds, from picking to swallowing. The step to remove seeds could be omitted if the eater was trying to get more than his fair share or if he didn't believe his mom when she told him not to swallow seeds because they would sprout in his stomach. However, swallowing lots of seeds today could prove to be uncomfortable tomorrow when visiting the outhouse. Late one afternoon, when the grapes were at their peak, this twelve-year-old kid took up a bucket and headed for a favorite grape tree. My aim was to surprise my mom and bring her some nice fat grapes for whatever use she might have for them. (Doing something without being told was not considered a chore because it might get you a dime for an RC and a Moon Pie). I got to my grape tree and started picking grapes near the ground. (You see, these grapes were not for immediate eating, they were for my mama, so the best ones weren't necessary). Soon the bottom of my pail was covered by two or three inches of grapes but, wanting to get some of those nice juicy grapes way up in the trees into my stomach, I abandoned my effort to fill my pail and set it on the ground. I shinnied up a grape tree and was soon busily picking and spitting. It wasn't long before I heard someone coming through the brush and, looking down, I saw three young boys from Bridges Street neighborhood approach the tree I was up. They walked to my bucket and one of them said, "Hey, looky here! Somebody done left these here grapes." Well, those boys knew I was up that tree and knew those were my grapes. The biggest of the three picked up the bucket and, looking up into my tree said, "I think I'll just eat these ol' grapes." And, with that said, he stuck his hand down into my pail, pulled out a grape and held it up in my direction, taunting me. From where I was, about fifteen to twenty feet up the tree, the tormentor looked to be about my size so I thought a little blustering on my part would get me out of a serious situation. So I hollered, "Hey! Y'all leave them grapes alone or I'll come down there and kick yo' damn butt!" Well, my tormentor gave me a toothy grin, squeezed my grape into his mouth and took up another, taunting me even more. Blustering had not solved my problem so maybe a little bluffing would work. Coming down as fast as I could I began yelling, "You gonna' get it now! I'm gonna' kick yo' damn butt all over these here woods!" I hit the ground running and thought sure this little act of bravado would set them off toward Bridges Street at double quick time. But, alas, poor me! I had made a serious miscalculation in the size of my adversary. From up there in the tree my estimation of size was off more than just a tad, for he stood nearly a head taller than me! Determined to give one more try to bluffing my way out, I put both hands on his chest and pushed! Oh, what a stupid thing to do! That boy was on me like a duck on a june bug! He grabbed me by an arm and gave me such a fling he threw me clear out of my shoes! Crash! Right into the bramble briars went I! He was on me in a flash and, not wanting to get beaten up too badly, I began yelling "Uncle! Uncle!" which was the universal signal that I had had enough and the victor should stop pounding me. Being aware of the rules he ceased his assault and helped me to my feet, helping to brush away the leaves and twigs clinging to every part of my clothing. My bucket had been overturned during this 15 seconds war, the grapes scattered among the leaves and underbrush, never to be seen again. Picking up my bucket and holding it so they could see it was empty I jacked up my courage and, with one breath, frantically told them a barefaced lie. "Y'all's goin'a make get me a whuppin' when I get home 'cause my mama done sent me down here to get her some jelly grapes and now y'all done throwed'em all over these here woods and there ain't a 'nough time left for me to pick a bucket full and she's goin'a tear my tail up!" Even though my buddies and I occasionally had a little tiff with the boys from Bridges Street we never held grudges and most especially never wanted to get a kid into trouble with his parents. That was the unwritten law; don't cause problems, don't be a tattletale. When one of the mothers from Bridges Street came to our hanging out places and asked if we had seen "so and so" we just said, "No ma'am, we ain't seen'im," even if we had just been playing together. We knew that kid was in serious trouble if his mother had to come way out to our hanging out places looking for him. Those three boys were fully aware of what would happen to a kid who did not do as his parents told him and, not wanting to be held responsible for me getting a licking, they took my bucket and in no time at all had it filled to the brim! Parting as friends I took my pail of grapes and started home. There were so many it seemed a shame to make just plain ol' jelly from them. So, at home I scrounged around and found an old five-gallon crock and squeezed those grapes by the hands full into it. I threw in some sugar, a little yeast, added a little bit of water and set the lid on top. After many days had passed the juice stopped bubbling. I strained the seeds and pulp and put the juice in three quart jars. I took one of my treasures to my buddies Howard and Larry Helton and we went off into the woods for our first introduction to the "nectar of the grape." Well, I think we got snockered because we got to laughing and horsing around like fools. Mr. Helton came home about nightfall and found Larry still a little silly, which upset Mr. Helton greatly. Within a day or so I was at the Helton's home and Mr. Helton told me several different things he would do to me (none of them pleasant!) if I ever gave his boys any more of that stuff. I believed him and never did it again. That was my first and last time at making hooch. I think an explanation of being thrown out of my shoes is in order. Normally, during the warm months from about May to October, we kids hardly ever wore shoes, not even to school. However, if we were going off into the woods for a day's exploring it was not considered sissified to put on shoes, especially considering the vast number of bramble briars lying about on the forest floor and snaking up into the trees. So, when I left home that afternoon to pick grapes I slipped my feet into an old pair of brogans to protect them from the briars. The shoes didn't even have laces and were therefore loose on my feet, so, when my adversary slung me into the bushes it was not so violent as to jerk my arm out of socket. Heck, my shoes would have fallen off if I had so much as kicked a little ol' tin can! Bruce Osburn 12-15-1999 OUR POND ....boats, frogs and snakes 1948-1953 by Bruce Osburn My dad bought fourteen acres of land near Hamlet on which to build a house for our family. The property was mostly wooded, with a grand house site on a small knoll gently rising from the county road - locally referred to as Lackey Street extension - about five-hundred feet to the east. Five hundred feet or so to the west of the house site was the Seaboard Air Line rail road to the south. As an added bonus there were the remnants of an old pond between the county road and the house site. With the help of brothers-in-law and nephews dad set about clearing the property. Some cutting of trees was necessary to clear the house site and other trees were cut for saw timber. There were huge pine trees there and they were felled and taken to a sawmill where they were cut into foundation sills, joists, rafters and other such house building materials. Dad bought an abandoned army barracks at Camp MacColl and salvaged the material it contained; doors, windows and lumber. With his home grown lumber and the materials from the barracks he built a huge house with 3 bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, den, living room and bath. In six months his labors produced a house suitable for moving into, even though there was still a lot of Sheet rock to be put on walls and ceilings. Dad hired a drag line and had the dam restored to a watertight condition. He made a concrete spillway and allowed water to back up behind the dam and, in a few months, we had a full pond. Don't think for a minute that that was a pristine pond. Quite the contrary. That pond was so dirty we could actually see suspended sediment in the water. When we went swimming the sediment collected on leg hair and made a blond kid look like he had black hair. Absolutely filthy! But, oh, did we have fun there! Fishing, boating, and yes, even swimming. In fact, a lot of boys learned to swim in that dirty ol' pond! That was not a small pond for it covered two acres or more, including what we commonly called the "head of the pond," the area farthest from the dam where the stream entered. That part of the pond that was cleared of standing trees was of various depths, ranging from about six feet near the dam, four to five feet in the center and tapering off to mere inches in the head of the pond. Our little pond was a haven for small wild life; mice, rabbits, 'possums, 'coons, snapping turtles and bullfrogs. The bullfrogs' and mice's greatest danger was there too, for the water moccasin was in abundance. Birds were plentiful; sparrows, cardinals, blue jays, brown thrashers, kingfishers, mocking birds, an occasional hawk and my mom's favorite, the blue bird. I saw a couple of owls once and every year plenty of migrating ducks in late fall. Every now and then a few ducks would get a late start on their way south and arrive when the pond was frozen. What a sight that was! Ducks alighting on a frozen pond are not graceful in the slightest way! Gene, the oldest of the three boy children at home, decided a pond without a boat was of no use at all. He set about building a "row boat," a boat that proved to be not a "row boat" at all but a "pole boat." The boat was made from 2 x 4s and 1" tongue and groove flooring, measuring about 8' long, 3' at the stern and tapering to 2' at the bow. It was nothing more than a flat bottomed, blunt nosed mud scow, but it floated! Well, it did after sitting in the water long enough for the boards to swell and seal up all the cracks. And it was sea worthy. We could get four or five kids in it, two or three of them pushing with poles. Thus manned, we could go anyplace the water was deep enough to float us. We spent many hours in that mud scow - hanging off the sides or looking for a good fishing spot. When we decided to go for a boat ride we had to be willing to pay the price. Getting the boat into the water was not an easy task for it weighed nearly two-hundred pounds when sufficiently water-logged to seal the cracks. It almost always took two to launch that ol' mud scow so there wasn't much danger of a kid going out by himself. Much tugging and grunting was necessary to drag it off the bank and get it afloat, not forgetting to get a good bailing bucket and the necessary poles. Getting the boat afloat was considered to be the most dangerous part of the outing, for not only were we subjecting ourselves to strains and pulls, water moccasins liked to crawl under the boat when it was on the bank. When first approaching the boat we poked it with a pole or gave it a good kick to scare any snakes away. (How were we supposed to know snakes were deaf?) And after we had first moved the boat a few inches it was prudent to stand back a few seconds to see if one would crawl from under the boat. But once we were on the high seas, what an adventure! Sailing to Japan, and China and other faraway places! Our mud scow also provided fun for the boys from Bridges Street. Some came out and helped themselves to the boat for an hour or two of adventure. Sometimes their sailing adventure included me or my brothers for several of us would pile into our ol' boat and set out for a bit of fun. Once, when brother Gene and I were in the boat with three or four of theBridges Street gang, an opportunity arose that gave Gene and me a chance to play a prank on them. That prank tickled Gene and me to pieces but scared the living daylights out of the other boys. We poled the boat about fifty feet from shore and Gene and I started horsing around, rocking the boat from side to side. That didn't sit too well with the other kids because some of them couldn't swim and they began to protest quite loudly. That only encouraged Gene and me to double our efforts. Gene and I stood with one foot on top of the sideboards and really got that ol' boat rocking! Their shouted protestations were in direct proportion to the movement of the boat - the greater the motion the louder the screams! When Gene and I finally got the boys worked into a frenzy we suddenly shifted all four of our feet onto the same side of the boat and upsy-daisy!, that ol' mud scow flipped completely over - up-side down and down-side up! Gene and I ducked underwater and came up under the now up-side down boat where there was plenty of room for us to get our heads out of the water and breath normally. Those poor, frightened kids from Bridges Street hung onto the overturned boat the best they could and we heard one say, "Where's them two boys? How come they ain't come up yet"? Pretty soon one said, "Oh, they's drowned, they's done drowned!" And then there was a noisy splashing toward shore as they dog-paddled through the clinging lily pads or tried to walk on the muddy bottom. A brief hesitation on shore retrieved clothing - some of the kids were jay-bird! - and toward home they ran, stopping just long enough to pull on their pants. Gene and I came from under the boat and just howled! We pulled this prank once more before word got out around the neighborhood and the Bridges Street kids would not get into the boat with us again. One day while I was fooling around at the pond a man stopped his car, came to me and said, "Kid, go out there and get me some of those water flowers." Well, he was an adult telling a kid what to do, so shoot, I just waded in up to my knees and grabbed a couple of handsful. I went back to shore and gave him the five water lilies I had pulled; he reached into his pocket, pulled out 50 cents, gave it to me and went back to his car. Holy smokes! Fifty cents for five water lilies! That was more money than I could earn all week doing chores. I was pretty fair in arithmetic and a quick calculation showed ten cents per flower. I looked out across our pond and determined I was rich! There were hundreds of flowers out there just waiting to be pulled and at ten cents each would easily add up to be more money than I could count. I hung around our pond several days waiting for that man to come back to get more but he nor anyone else ever came to buy my flowers. Darn, my business failed before it ever got started! Our pond had a considerable population of frogs of different types. There were toads, little tree frogs, and at least two types of bullfrogs - small brown bullfrogs and big green bullfrogs. I liked to tell people that our frogs were so intelligent they could talk. Some nights I could hear a great big ol' green bullfrog let go with his deep throated, long, drawn out croak of "Yooouu-stolllllll, yooouu-stolllll." I'd stand on the bank and answer him, "What did I steal?" A smaller frog would pipe up with a rapid, repetitive, high pitched "Tabacca, tabacca, tabacca." And I'd say, "Well , where did I hide that tobacco?" And a cousin of the big green bullfrog would answer with a deep, throaty "Unner th'rooot, unner th'rooot". "Well", I'd say, "How deep under the root did I bury it?" And a little tree peeper would chime in with a shrill "needeep, needeep, needeep". Yes sir, we had some mighty smart frogs in our pond! Those big green bullfrogs were a desired item for I liked to deep fry a pair of legs whenever I could. Sometimes I could catch one with my bare hands if I was stealthy enough to slip up on one that wasn't paying close attention to his survival., which was not very often. One day while out exploring I discovered a little bitty stream leading to our pond and followed it back to its source, which turned out to be a small spring producing hardly more than a trickle. As I neared the spring I heard the familiar, barely audible splash of bullfrogs entering water. I had just found a "honey hole" full of big jumpers! I made sure my Red Ryder BB gun was cocked and sat down near the spring to wait for a bullfrog to come up for air. I knew I would only get one shot so I sat as still as I could. But none showed its head and after ten or fifteen minutes I packed it in and went home. The next day I was right back down there. I crept up to the spring as quietly as I could with my BB gun at the ready. Splish, splish, just as yesterday, they were gone. I waited for awhile and none appeared so back home I went. The next day and the day after, the same thing. I was so determined to get one or two of those frogs that I decided to do a little cleaning of the spring. I removed all the accumulated leaves, sticks and other trash from it. I pulled the grass and weeds from around the rim. In short, I wound up with a spring that was as clean as a whistle, both on the bottom and for two or three feet back from the edge. Now I was sure to get my prize for there was no place for them to hide. Tomorrow when I came back I would just stick my hand into the water and pull'em out. The next day the same thing occurred. Splish, splash and they were gone. I ran to the spring and looked down into the clear water and no frogs! Where were they!? I stepped into the spring and squatted so I could survey the bottom and sides. Nothing! Exasperated, I thrust my hands into the water and began feeling around on the bottom and near the sides. As I explored the sides, lo and behold! my hand reached into an open space under the side! When the frogs jumped in they swam underwater to a nice, dry place under the edge of the spring! Pushing my arm in up to the shoulder I felt around and there they were, jumping and leaping all over the place. I grabbed one and administered the coup de grace with my Red Ryder BB gun. I went for another one and headed home with two fine pairs of frog legs, and tasty they were! But, in my greed to get as many as possible in as short a time as possible, I killed the golden goose. In just a few weeks the little spring was no longer a home for bullfrogs for I had either killed them all or scared them to a safer place. When I told my buddies how I outsmarted those frogs they called me a damn fool, telling me how water moccasins like bullfrogs and hang around frog holes. They said I was as likely to have grabbed a snake as I was to have grabbed a frog! Another survival skill learned! Some of brother Gene's city buddies learned of our big ol' bullfrogs and asked permission to come out to get a few. Three or four guys came out early one evening with their frogging gear - 3-pronged gigs, knee boots, hip boots and bright, lantern type flashlights. Those guys were ready for some serious frog gigging! A couple guys in knee boots headed for the shallow part of the "head of the pond" and waded into the water. Pretty soon one of the guys shouted out, "WHOOOEE!" Another voice said, "Do you see one"? And the answer, "No. But I see a big ol' cottonmouth!" So, the hunter was now in danger of becoming the hunted. But, I'll give those boys their due. They certainly weren't sissies, taking flight at the first sighting of a little ol' cottonmouth! No sir! They just shifted their focus from frogs to snakes. They gigged more than just a few, possibly a half dozen or more. And everyone of them tossed onto the ground where I was standing, barefoot as could be. When the boys made a good stab they simply flipped their gig backward and the cottonmouth was flung loose and fell there on the bank. Some of them had their innards hanging out from torn sides, not yet dead and trying to crawl away. That's when I gave'em a good whack with a tree limb. And some of those ol' cottonmouths were huge, bigger than an arm, but hardly more than four- or five-feet long. [After I had written the above episode I called my brother Gene, who now lives in Gainesville, Fl, to ask about it. He said one of the boys that came out was Bobby "Hill" Atkinson, whose father owned the pool hall on Main St. He thought one of the other boys was Harold Spence but was not absolutely sure and the boys got five snakes that night.] Yes, our pond provided a place for fun and, at the same time, a place of danger for young boys. But - and you might think I'm jerking your leg now - our greatest fear when swimming was not the moccasins because they tried to stay out of our way. Our greatest fear was for little critters no more than three or four inches long for they compelled us to get out of the water every ten minutes or so to examine our skin, so great was our fear of the dreaded leech! That little parasite had no preferences when it came to sucking blood; white or black, you were just as apt to find one on you as was your playmate! Bruce Osburn 12-19-1999
During my young years growing up in Hamlet I spent many days during the warm months doing boy things at an old pond near our house. The pond was known to the folks in our neighborhood as Liles' Lake, attributing ownership to a Mr. Liles on Lackey St. (Since writing this tale I have been informed by Marilyn Martin Coggins that she remembers going there as a young girl in the early 1940s and the pond was then known as Henderson's Pond.) During its heyday the lake must have been a popular destination for families seeking relief from hot, summer days. It was located only a mile or so from the south side of Hamlet, within easy walking or biking distance. The lake was bounded on the north side by a gently sloping, clean, sandy beach that continued on into the water, providing an excellent bottom. There were no stumps or mud to mar an afternoon's swim. The water was clear and cool, with visibility of several feet. It was, all things considered, an ideal spot to while away hours with family and friends. Someone had attempted to make this lake a money making property and had built a two room bathhouse - one room for the boys and one room for the girls. The rooms were separated by a smaller room that served as a swimming fee collection point and also a place to get a Coke or Pepsi or RC and different types of nabs. There were no rest rooms; but there were plenty of woods nearby and the call of nature was left up to the ingenuity of the swimmer! Despite the best intentions of the owner the lake failed as a money maker and was abandoned for that purpose. By the time our family moved there in 1948 the place was in terrible shape. The first visit I made there revealed a building that had been vandalized. The doors were laying in the brush, shot away with .22 rifles and shotguns. Several holes penetrated the roof and some of the cinder blocks had been knocked from the walls. The dam was in a sad state and held back only about half of its original body of water. But the condition of the property did not deter the adventurous kids from Hamlet and my neighborhood from getting maximum enjoyment from that small body of water. We swam, fished, camped out, cooled stolen watermelons and did things only boys were expected to do. One day I went there to do boy things and came upon a group of Boy Scouts from Hamlet that were on an outing. We did the usual showing off and fooling around but soon my attention was directed at trying to catch some crawdads near the shore. Naturally, since it was a warm part of the year, I didn't have shoes. I was in water about ankle deep and thoroughly engrossed in chasing those crawdads. I was at a full run when my right foot came down, full force, on the sharp end of a black jack oak sapling someone had cut and thrown into the water. Yelling like I had just been murdered, I fell down on the shore and grabbed my foot with both hands. What a gash! The outside part of my foot had been ripped open from bottom to top! My blood curdling screams brought the Boy Scouts on the run. They quickly assessed the situation and, before I could escape their clutches, had dumped the biggest portion of the contents of an iodine bottle into the gash, which increased my yelling a couple of decibels. They then passed something through the gash, against my protestations, to clean the sand out. They then wrapped my foot in a big ol' bandage and I started for home. When I got home mom couldn't help but notice that big ol' bandage and my limp. She sent me off to see Dr. Garrison who looked at the wound, commented on how clean it was, and quickly put in several stitches. Those Boy Scouts had so impressed me that I was determined to be one, too. I went to a meeting with one of my Boy Scout friends, but alas, I was told that there was a 50 cents a meeting dues fee, which I didn't have, so I continued to be an unsupervised kid learning survival skills on my own. We kids drowned a lot of worms there impaled on a little hook. A little hook was necessary because the fish we were more successful at catching were what we called "sun fish." They were a small fish with a little red dot near the gills which some people called brim. Of course, the name brim was often applied to any fish no one knew the proper name for. The ones we could be sure of correctly identifying were the catfish, the eel, and a long, skinny fish we called a pike (well, sometimes we called it a jack) so our knowledge of things marine was limited. But, the little sun fish were easy to catch. We caught them with a little piece of worm just barely covering the hook or we used a little piece of dough stuck onto the very tip of the hook. Another method was to use a bare treble hook and snag one while they were feeding on a piece of old stale bread thrown into the water. Those little fellows were hardly ever as big as a little boy's hand so catching one or two or even six or seven was a futile effort in trying to get enough for a fish fry. A kid needed to catch at least a half-bucket of those little fellows before he had enough to take home. At home we scaled and gutted the fish. Mom rolled them in corn meal, tossed them into a deep pot of hot grease and fried them to a golden brown, very crisp morsel. At the same time she had put on a pot of grits and made a few corn dodgers. And when all was ready we kids - and adults, too!- sat down for some good bone picking and finger licking! But we knew Liles' Lake had bigger fish than those little sun fish. In late afternoon, when shadows were beginning to get long, activity picked up on the surface of the pond. Water skimmers and other critters that spent their life near the surface of the lake became prey to large-mouth bass. The bass attacked with such ferocity they completely cleared the water! Sometimes they made just a swoosh! at the surface and were gone. But regardless of how many cane poles we set into the bank, and enticed those bass with worms, not one was ever caught. My fourteen-year-old cousin, Danny Osburn from Massey Hill, NC, was visiting one weekend and quickly assessed our failure to catch ole Mr. Bass. "You ain't gonna catch them bass with'a little ol' worm" said he, "you gotta catch a bass with'a plug. Next time mom comes down I'll show you how to catch a bass." Some weeks later Danny came for another visit, this time with his fishing gear. The only fishing gear I had ever used was an old cane pole and, in emergencies, a small tree limb. Danny had more fishing stuff than I had ever seen! He had a metal casting rod, with a reel, and a tackle box full of hooks with feathers attached, little silver spoon looking thingamajigs, wooden bugs with treble hooks and a thing he called a jitterbug. That jitterbug had two treble hooks - one in front and one in back - and had painted eyes and spots on its body. In the front was a little eyelet for attaching the string and directly below the eyelet was a small piece of concave shiny metal. "This ol' jitterbug'll get them bass," said he. "This is a top-water plug and makes a popping noise when pulled through the water and drives them bass crazy." Late one afternoon found us at the lake ready to challenge Mr. Bass. Danny tied the jitterbug onto his line and cast it out into the lake. During retrieval he gave small jerks to the lure, causing the jitterbug to skip across the surface, making popping noises just like he said it would! After several casts and no bass I began to think that my worms were just as good as Danny's fancy fishing gear. We moved from spot to spot trying to find where they were hiding. Danny made another cast and something went wrong. The jitterbug was making its arc through the air when suddenly, backlash! The line tightened and sent the lure off on a different trajectory, almost at a ninety degree angle from its original intent, where it landed far to Danny's left, about eight or ten feet from the shore in water only about two or three feet deep. After unsnarling the backlash Danny began to reel in the line as rapidly as he could. But, to further compound his woes, it appeared the line had become entangled in the front treble hook. Instead of popping along on the surface that ol' jitterbug was putting on a dazzling display it wasn't designed to do. Being entangled in the treble hook the line was now pulling the jitterbug from near the center, and that little piece of concave metal was now causing the jitterbug to spiral during retrieval. It burst from the water and leapt a foot or so to the side where it again entered the water and repeated its gyrations. After four or five of those leaping displays ol' Mr. Bass couldn't stand it any longer and struck that jitterbug so fiercely he cleared the water a good foot or two. "I got'im! I got'im!" shouted Danny, and began to reel him in. "He's a big'un, oh, he's a big'un" Danny whooped, and then, disaster! The reel fell off onto the sand! Ol' Mr. Bass started his run for the center of the pond, unhindered, the line spinning off the reel so fast it was making the sand fly. "Get the line!" hollered Danny, "Grab the line!" I made a headlong dive onto the sand and grabbed the line, and scooted and scampered backwards with the line clutched tightly in both hands. As I made my way up the slope, dragging Mr. Bass with me, Danny flashed by me and was at the water's edge when the fish cleared the lake. We made our way home, taking our prize with us. I had never before seen such a big fish, not even a catfish and I had seen plenty of them. It was readily apparent why they were called large-mouth bass - I could stick my whole hand inside his mouth! At home ol' Mr. Bass was put on the scales where he showed a weight of three pounds, ten ounces, easily the biggest fish ever. Now you might think Danny had that ol' fish mounted for display, and you'd be wrong. He was treated like any other fish that found its way to our house. He was cleaned, cut into small pieces, rolled in corn meal, deep fat fried and eaten along with the customary plate of grits. But he is still remembered for someone had the foresight to suggest we take his picture, which we did. All of the activities at Liles' Lake were not confined to water sports. One activity was centered around plant life and involved only one person that I can recall. Al Horton, a classmate of mine, was a budding horticulturist and he, or someone, had discovered a concentration of water plants that included pitcher plants and venus flytraps. That little patch of plants was located on the east side of the Sea Board Airline tracks going south, right where the out-flow of Liles' Lake emerged from the drain pipe under the railroad bed. Al spent considerable time at that little bog selecting and digging up specimens to take home. Sometimes I saw Al there and stuck my nose into his business. Most times I wound up destroying what he was trying to save. I ripped apart pitcher plants just to see how many bugs were trapped inside the tubes. A venus flytrap fascinated me. Touching the fine hairs inside the open jaws with a twig triggered the flytrap to close. The closure was not a snap closure like a steel trap, but a movement that seemed to me to be so slow any insect would have plenty of time to escape the jaws of death. But I guess Mother Nature knew what she was doing because venus flytraps thrived there. Bruce Osburn 1-25-2000
The following notes were sent to Bruce on 7/24/00 by Brenna Husel:
Bruce, I am writing to you because I saw the webpage on Hamlet and your story on Liles Lake. My grandfather was Joseph C. Liles, former mayor of Hamlet, and my grandmother was Edith Henderson Liles. The pond is actually Henderson Pond as Marilyn Coggins suggested, but I have heard it referred to as Liles Lake a few times. Thought I would write and update you on the pond... my uncle, Joe Liles, drained the pond about 10 years ago, dug out all the stumps, got all the weeds out, cut back some trees, etc. Then he completely refilled it and stocked it with 2,000 fish. He built a screen house and a deck over the pond. Up the "new" road is his house, which faces Rice Street. We spend most holidays down there at the pond having cook-outs and swimming. Before he decided to build a house there, my mother built a house a few acres away on the other side of the lake. We used to walk through the woods to the pond and Mom (Linda Liles Bendell - HHS '60) would tell us stories about how everyone used to swim and fish there. There was a log in place of the dam that we would walk across to get to the other side. We could not use the pond while we were growing up because it was in total disarray. Now, there is a little bridge (you can drive to the other side) over the dam and the lake is surrounded by gardens. It is such a lovely place... so relaxing. Uncle Joe goes down there everyday to fish, work in the garden, or just lounge. His daughter, Christian, brings her friends to swim a lot. He has duck boxes on the far side of the lake, so there are usually some little" quackers" around. His wife, Carla, has hanging baskets in the screen house, so it looks so nice all the time. I can't tell you enough how wonderful it is to have the pond and to be able to create memories at a place that is so much a part of Hamlet's history. Since you had so many memories there, I thought you would like to be updated. [Brenna] PANSY FETNER ...a school remembered 1948-1950 by Bruce Osburn I first attended Pansy Fetner School in January, 1948, after my family had moved to Hamlet from Massey Hill, a part of Fayetteville, NC. Pansy Fetner was a nondescript school - a two-story brick building with six grades, a small auditorium and a lunch room. The building and grounds occupied an entire block, bounded on four sides by streets. Two entrances, front and back, provided access to the classrooms. The lunchroom, located in the basement, had an outside access door on the east side. The playgrounds were on the east, south and west sides. The north side, which was the front entrance, was near the street and offered no space for playing. The west side playground was the domain of the boys and the east side was for the girls. The south side was for anyone, that being the location of the outdoor drinking fountain. I don't know if the separation of the boys and girls was school policy or if the arrangement simply evolved over the years. Whatever the reason, it was an arrangement that worked well. We kids played many games during recess and lunch periods - hopscotch, marbles, softball, football, rasslin', jack-knife throwing and kite flying in March. If any kid could invent a new game it was played with as much enthusiasm as it deserved. The play areas were too small for full-sized softball or football fields so we improvised and adapted our games to suit the area. We, boys and girls separately, played an abbreviated game of softball called "One-eyed Cat" that consisted of 1st batter, 2nd batter, 1st baseman, pitcher, catcher and as many outfielders as wanted to play. The outfielders were 1st outfielder, 2nd outfielder, 3rd outfielder and so on until the last player to join the game had the highest outfield number. The object of the game was for the two batters to run the bases - from home to 1st and back to home - without making an out. If either of the two batters was "put-out" at 1st base or at home, every player was advanced one position. The catcher went to 2nd batter, the pitcher to catcher, the1st baseman to pitcher, the1st outfielder to 1st baseman and the 2nd outfielder to 1st outfielder and so on. The batter that had just made an "out" was now the last outfielder. Those that joined the game late had a slim chance of advancing to batter, especially considering the short time for play. So, in order to give everyone a shot at batting, one of the rules was that anyone catching a fly ball for an out traded positions with the batter. That rule induced a lot of low hits and grounders, which would invoke the first bounce rule. Catch a ball on first bounce and it was as good as catching a fly ball! It was a fun game, especially if you got to bat, and made a few sore hands because hardly anyone had a glove. The kids attending Pansy Fetner were a varied lot. There were kids from town, kids from the country, affluent kids, poor kids, tall, short, pretty, not so pretty, polite, not so polite. Some of the kids from the country lived on working farms and their labor was essential for the success of the farm. There were more than just a few of these kids and some did not begin a new school year until the cotton was harvested in late September. It seems that a bully could be found on every school yard and Pansy Fetner was no exception. Our resident bully was rather large for our school yard. Whether or not he was big for his age or he had been held back a couple years I don't know. But whatever the reason for his size he thoroughly enjoyed picking on small kids. I was in 5th grade and had seen him and his bullying ways so I avoided him as much as possible. He was the typical bully and I was the typical coward. But one day something made me confront him. He was being his nasty ol' self and tormenting a little kid so badly the little fellow was crying. I walked up to him and said, "Leave'im alone! Stop picking on'im!" Well, ol' bully boy just looked at me and spit on my foot. He done spit on my foot!! There was no greater show of contempt than that! Why, that was worse than a D-DOUBLE-DARE-YOU! I knew I about to become victim #2 so I lashed out with my left fist with all my might. I connected with the side of his face and he fell to the ground. Before I could flee, and he regain his feet, a teacher had us both by the ears and marched us off to Mrs. Tillman, the principal, who gave us both a good paddling. I had just escaped a school yard butt kicking, been paddled by Mrs. Tillman and knew I was in for a licking when I got home. Mom had told us kids more than once to behave ourselves at school. A spanking by a teacher earned us another at home. Fighting at school also brought out the belt. I knew mom would find out about my day because my youngest brother, Kenny, was in 1st grade there and was sure to tell her when he got home. At home that afternoon the usual pleasantries were exchanged and nothing was mentioned about my day at school. Had Kenny not yet told mom? Not long afterward mom noticed me favoring my left hand and asked about it. Aha! Kenny had tattled! I knew I had to tell her about my day so I 'fessed up. After listening to my excuses she simply said, "I'll tend to you later". Oh! That was the worse thing she could do! Waiting for a licking is pure torment, not knowing when the switch will draw welts! After several hours had passed I began to think mom had forgotten. After a day had passed and still no thrashing I began to relax a bit. Days and weeks and months passed and even I forgot about it. Years later while remembering the past with mom she confessed why she hadn't tanned my hide that day. Kenny had not tattled like I thought he would but had actually saved me from mom's wrath. Kenny had told Mrs. Tillman (I think she was his teacher) that I was going to get another spanking when I got home. Kenny told Mrs. Tillman about mom's penalties for us kids if we misbehaved at school. I don't know if Kenny was gloating because he knew I was going to get it when I got home or if he was pleading my case, trying to evoke a little sympathy from Mrs. Tillman. Mrs. Tillman called mom (yes, we had a telephone!) and told her I had gotten a spanking at school. She then explained her reasons for spanking me - discipline, set an example, maintain good order on the school yard, etc. And then, she saved me from getting a licking! She told mom she knew of her discipline policy and said, "Mrs. Osburn, please don't spank Bruce for what happened at school today. My heart really wasn't into spanking him but I had to. In fact, I am glad he did what he did. That other boy deserved everything he got!" (Or words to that effect.) Can you believe it!? A teacher going to bat for a kid! Pansy Fetner was less than two blocks from Hamlet Library and we students were sometimes marched there, single file, to return and check out books. Some of us boys were eager to go because, undoubtedly, we were planning to be explorers or big game hunters when we grew up. We made a bee-line for the instructional books that would help us achieve that ambition and quickly snatched issues of National Geographic from the shelves so we could learn what animals to hunt. Before we had made many identifications a sharp rap on our heads from an ever vigilant teacher sent us to less educational books. I read a lot of Nancy Drew books and can't remember anything I learned from them. Wasn't childhood great!!? Bruce Osburn 2-5-2000
Subject: "Mrs" Tillman
Subject: HAMLET stuff MISS TILLMAN
Subject: Pansy Fetner...Richard I didn't know how to post this. Jean
During the years my family lived near Hamlet we children rode a school bus to and from school. In the beginning there were just two of us taking the bus - my brother Gene and me. In September, 1948, my youngest brother Kenny started first grade and my sister Ginger returned home and entered 12th grade, making four of us Osburns to wait impatiently each morning for it. Because of safety concerns the kids that boarded at our stop were the first to be loaded in the morning and the last to be dropped off in the afternoon. There was a rule that prohibited loaded buses from crossing the tracks of a busy railroad. The Seaboard Air Line crossing on Lackey Street was much too dangerous because sometimes more than two trains an hour passed there. Gigantic steam engines belched thick black smoke as they strained against the weight of a hundred or more loaded freight cars as they left Hamlet yard for points south. And there were barely hissing engines burdened only with the sleek aluminum cars of the Silver Star or Silver Meteor. They rapidly gained speed as they whisked fully loaded coach and dining cars to Florida, along with a couple of Railway Express cars filled with US mail, a train of only 12 or 14 cars. But there was no way for our bus to avoid the Rockingham and Bennettsville Railroad tracks and they were crossed at two different locations. The first was about two miles south of our house and the other was at NC route #38 near the Carolina Gas Company offices and storage facilities. I guess school officials didn't consider the R&B RR a threat because that line had few cars and passed by only once every day or so. Our route began at our stop and meandered through the rural area southeast of Hamlet. About forty-five or fifty kids were picked up on this route and delivered to three schools in Hamlet. Some were delivered to Fayettevillle Avenue School, some were taken to Pansy Fetner School and the rest were off-loaded at Hamlet Avenue School. Most, if not all, of the buses were required to make two separate routes - or loads - each morning and afternoon. As luck would have it we got the least desirable of the routes - first load in the morning and last load in the afternoon. Literally translated that means we were the first load of kids picked up in the morning and the second load dropped off in the afternoon. The first-load children in the morning were dropped at their schools way before classes started because the bus had to make another trip for the second route. In the afternoon the second-load children - who were actually the same kids of the first load in the morning - had to wait on the school yard until the bus returned from making its first afternoon route. Actually, this wasn't as grim as it first appears. There was lots of time for hanging out with your buddies and delayed the chores you knew were waiting for you at home. When I was in school there was a milestone most kids were eager to reach - their sixteenth birthday. For some it was the day they trashed their books and quit school saying they didn't need more education to work in the textile mills. And for some it was the day they got their driver's license and for still others it was the day they got their license plus getting to drive a school bus. In retrospect it could be argued that the State of North Carolina engaged in a dangerous practice - that of allowing students to drive school buses. The drivers were paid one dollar a day - twenty-two bucks a month! For this princely sum they were given more responsibility than a sixteen-year-old kid should have; proper and safe handling of a huge motor vehicle, order among the passengers and arriving on time. Their word was law; misbehave and you were unceremoniously ejected from the bus to make your way home the best way you could. I don't know if any of the drivers that kicked kids off buses were ever brought to task by irate parents. But mostly, I think the kids were in for more trouble when they got home. For if there was one thing kids of that era were taught, it was respect for authority. Even thought we were not required to address the driver as "sir" we were most definitely required to sit when he said "sit" and shut our mouths when he said "shut up." Maybe sixteen-year-old kids were more responsible in those days and deserved a vote of confidence but I would never entrust a grandkid of mine to today's teen age drivers. Our driver brought his unloaded bus south on Lackey Street, crossed the SAL tracks and arrived at our stop at 7 a.m., rain or shine. If we weren't there at our stop, tough luck, for there was no waiting for late sleepers. Come along and let me introduce you to some of the kids I rode the bus with more than fifty years ago. Our bus made its first pickup at the end of our road which was the designated stop for the families of three houses. During the five year period we lived there a couple of families moved in and out. Some of Mr. Knight's grandchildren came to stay for several months at a time. I still remember the names of some of the kids at our stop - Howard, Larry and Gwendolyn Helton; Pete, Sally, Helen Miller and another sister; Mary Lou Presslar; and the four of us Osburns. At the next stop was Garrison Hatcher and I believe he had a younger sister. Another stop brought aboard a golden haired girl about my age but she was only there a year or so. The Chavis' stop was about a mile from our house and there we loaded Caroline, Walter, Roman, Farly, Amos and Levi. I know there were older boys there but they didn't attend school. Caroline was a dear friend. She was about four years older than me and treated me just like I was her own little brother, giving me candy and gum and other treats. Our next stop was less than a half-mile beyond the Chavises. We picked up Richard and Lois Rogers and another sister (Peggy?) just after we crossed the Rockingham & Bennettsville RR and made a left turn at the cross roads. In 1962 or 1963, while I was serving aboard the aircraft carrier Saratoga, I saw Richard while we were both waiting in the pay line. The letters "O" and "R" were being paid in the same line and Richard had seen my name on the pay list and came looking for me. We had a brief visit but I never saw him again. After all, the Saratoga had over 5,000 men aboard and all of us were as busy as could be. Richard worked on the flight deck and I worked down in the bowels of the ship in the boiler rooms. In 1962 the Saratoga was in Portsmouth, VA, shipyards and a buddy and I went to Hamlet on a weekend. We were "riding our thumb" so we had to make our way around Hamlet on foot. We passed by the corner of Lackey Street and Main Street and there, sitting on the front porch of the hotel which had been converted into living quarters for nursing students, was one of the Rogers girls. I don't now remember her name but I did at that time. We visited for a bit and then I went on my way. Our next stop was just past Marks Creek at the Knights. There were two or three boys, but I can't remember any of their names. A half-mile or less brought us to the Wrights. I remember one of the boys named Eugene who, at one time, drove our route. There was at least one more brother and I can't remember about sisters. Directly in front of the Wrights lived Bruce Hardin who was about my age. Before the driver could shift from second we were at the Roscoes where Virginia and her sister Ann boarded. Ann was in my grade but in a different class. Virginia was a year or so older than me. Continuing on our way for just a short distance, hardly enough time to shift out of second, was another pickup of a first or second grader. First gear brought us to Bobby Peele's house - he of the dancing feet. If you drove slowly by Bobby's house some afternoon you might be rewarded by seeing him perform one of his tap dance numbers. We crossed the Rockingham & Bennettsville RR once again at NC #38 and turned right. At the next stop the Quicks boarded. There were two boys - Curtis and his brother - and their sister, Shirley. Both of the Quick boys drove buses during their school days. Shirley was about three years older than me and I was in love with her. For a year or so I saved her a seat on the bus and woe to the person who tried to sit in her seat! There were always plenty of seats available when she boarded and she could have sat almost anyplace she wanted. But she sat next to me and thanked me for saving her a seat which sent my young heart soaring. Yes, siree! Shirley was quite a girl! Our next stop, about a half-mile's distance, brought aboard two brothers whose names escape me. Which is all well and good because I wouldn't identify them here so as not to cause them pain. Both were quite young, about seven and nine years. The older of the two was more than mildly retarded and was not able to speak clearly or to attend to his needs. The oldest boy was teased by some of the kids and his little brother always came to his defense. Even though there was no physical contact between the boy and his tormentors the taunts were still enough to make him cry. The younger one screamed in protest at the tormentors, his eyes flashing in anger and small fists raised in a defensive stance, giving his brother what little protection he could with his small body. I'm ashamed to say that I did nothing to prevent the abuse but in my defense I can say that I didn't participate in the harassment. My mom had cautioned us kids early on in our lives not to stare at or make fun of people with physical or mental disorders - laughing at a kid with crossed eyes earned us a sharp rap on the head. She would remind us that we might someday have children of our own that weren't perfect in every way. Next in line were the Smith girls - Rebecca "Becky" and her sister. I think the sister was Mary Ellen but can't be absolutely sure. Becky was in my grade but a different class room. About a quarter-mile to the "T" intersection was the home of the Gibson girls. There were three of them, one called Jeanett and the other two I can't remember. What I do remember is that one of them used to bring her needle-point work aboard the bus and stitch away on the trip to school. I think there was at least one more Gibson girl to board before the bus reached the Farmer home. Three Farmer boys were there and at least two of them drove school buses while in school. The only name I remember is Boyd. Several hundred feet more and we were at the Liles' home where Elizabeth Liles and Barney Patrick boarded. Barney was my 1st cousin and he's the Barney mentioned by Russ Lancaster in his tale of The Grab. We crossed a wooden bridge over the SAL tracks and turned left onto NC #381 where our next stop was less than two miles. There we picked up Abbie Hammond and just a stone's throw more, just before we went under the SAL tracks near US #74, we picked up Phoebe Martin and her brothers. Abbie and Phoebe were both in my grade. US #74 was just ahead and we turned left, passed the Coca-Cola bottling plant and made our last stop at a small grocery store. The kid boarding there wasn't supposed to ride our bus but our driver and he were friends. After a quick detour to Fayetteville Avenue School to drop off kids the bus went on to Pansy Fetner School to off load more kids. From Pansy Fetner the bus went to Hamlet Avenue School where it remained until it was time to start the process in reverse. In the afternoon the route was reversed. The kids that boarded last in the morning were the first to be off-loaded in the afternoon. The kids that boarded first in the morning were the last to be off-loaded in the afternoon. During the shortest days of the year some of us kids caught the bus in the dark and came home in the dark. Our bus route was about ten or twelve miles, maybe more but certainly not less. It was, by and large, an enjoyable trip. I enjoyed it and remember the good times I had. Bruce Osburn 3-20-2000 9-9-2001 Brother Gene read this tale and told me that he used to drive one of the buses also - but not officially and not for pay. He said that when he was just thirteen years old one of our route drivers used to let him drive. After the Chavis family had been dropped off in the afternoon the driver let Gene drive the mile to our stop, which was the last one of the route. THE LUMBERJACKS ...child labor? early summer 1952 by Bruce Osburn When I was nearly 14 years old I worked a week during the summer at a job so dangerous that if the same circumstances occurred today OSHA would shut down the entire operation. My dad had gone back into active service with the Army during the Korean Conflict and was sent to Germany for two years, not to return home until about October 1952. During his absence every dollar brought into the home was put to good use. Brother Gene worked at Mr. Everett Goodwyn's Texaco station on Main Street across the street from the Post Office. Every nickel or dime I made collecting soft drink bottles for return of two cents deposit was a nickel or dime mom didn't have to give me for the movies or candy or soft drinks. I don't want you to think we were destitute, quite the contrary. We were considered rather well off as compared to our neighbors and relatives. We did not want for anything but did not turn down opportunities to make an extra buck or two. The property owner next to us arranged to have some of his timber harvested by an operator of a local sawmill. The area to be cut could only be reached by going through our property so mom agreed to allow the log truck to pass through on the back side of our place. She declared that the dam over which our access road passed was too fragile to support the weight of a loaded truck. After cutting and hauling for a week or so the logger told mom he was finished and asked if she would sell some of our timber he had seen on the back side | ||||||