Dennis Crocker Memories - Part 10 (July 2, 2016) - Some More Memories
From 1947 to 1953 we lived in a house that had belonged to my great grandmother. It was, and still is located on the Cowpens –Pacolet Highway about ¾ mile up the road from Kegtown and Mr Carl Whitlock’s general store. Our immediate neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Whitlock. Mr. Whitlock was a brother to Carl Whitlock-the store owner.
Mr. and Mrs John B. Whitlock had several children, Roy, J.B., Muriel, Wilma and Coy. All these folks were about the age of my Mother and Dad. Muriel had a daughter and a son , Janice and Bobby. Bobby (Shackelford) was to become my very best friend. Other friends were Walton (Nut) Brown, a little older than we were, his brother, Ansel, sisters, Cornelia, and Gail(Gail became best friends with my sister Charlotte).
Bobby had cousins,children of J.B. and Bernice, JoAnn and Junior Whitlock. These two people were great friends too, but their father’s vocation took that family out of our area for several months to more than a year at a time. We were always greatly pleased when they came home.
Between our house and Bobby’s (John B. Whitlock) was a vacant lot that was the scene for a lot of our activities. Actually, it was 2 lots. The one closest to the Cowpens/Pacolet road had at one time had grapes planted on it, but had been neglected for years and was all grown up in weed, and small trees. If you started walking from the Cowpens road, on a path perpendicular to that road, halfway between Bobby’s house and ours, you’d soon come to a gravel and red dirt road that ran from our house to Bobby’s and crossing that, you’d be in what we always called the “middle field”.
I reckon the middle field was about an acre, give or take a bit. When you got to the back of the middle field, where home plate was located, you’d enter another bigger field that was all grown up with “broom Straw”. You didn’t have to walk more than another 50 to 75 yards and you’d come to a shallow gully which had served as a trash dump for a lot of years. Usually the trash was thrown onto the existing pile, and paper trash was burned. As long as the trash was taken to about the center of the old dump, there was no worry about the fire getting in to the broom straw.
The field containing the broom straw was 3 or 4 acres bordered on one side (the left looking away from the Cowpens road) by Dad’s property, and on the right by pine trees. Just about to the end of the middle field our barn and chicken house was to the left side, and Bobby’s barn and chicken house was about opposite on the right. Past there, to the right you could walk across the field, past were Hack Burgess had once owned a home that burned down in the late ‘30’s to my maternal grandparents, Mr &Mrs S.E. Loftis. I’d guess that was about 300 to 400 yds from our house.
One day I was instructed to take the trash to the trashpile just described. Bob and Jr. and I were playing, but I had to drop out of the game, and take the trash. They gave me a helping hand because there were two or three bags, As we dumped the trash, Jr. spied a toy rubber rat in the garbage. It was about the size of a kitten.
I had set the paper on fire and was watching it burn when Jr. decided to set the rubber rat’s tail on fire. He held its tail in the fire for several moments ,and it caught. He backed away from the burning trash ,and the rubber rat’s tail begin to really flare and to melt. I believe he got a little bit of that hot melting rubber on one of his hands. Well, he tried to throw the rat down, but the melted rubber stuck to his hand, greatly distorting the direction from the direction Jr. had meant to throw it. The result was that it went into the broom straw. The straw was quite dry,and it quickly produced a blaze that we couldn’t put out. I ran for Mom, and I think Bobby ran to get his Step Dad, Woodrow Robinson. My Dad was at work, but Mom Had the presence of mind to call my uncle Talmadge Loftis who lived just the other side of my grandparents. Pretty soon we had all those people , plus Mr Bill Burgess involved. The fire must have burned an acre or two of broom grass before we got it under control, THEN
Came the great inquisition!! My Mother gathered Jr. Bob,and me and set about finding out how the fire started. She told me in no uncertain terms that I knew better than to play with fire,and if I was involved with it I was going to get a WHIPPING. I immediately placed the blame squarely where it belonged-on Jr.
He denied it and said I was playing with the rubber rat and it caught fire and I threw it into the grass. I was aghast at such a lie! Then ,to my consternation Bob Backed Jr.’s version, Jr was, (is ) his first cousin, and blood is thicker than water!!! I was totally innocent—but I got a switching for the event , and Bob and Jr. got off scot free!!
I was reminded of this memory several years ago. I live sorta between Lowry’s and McConnell’s SC. Off a dirt and gravel road. My driveway is about ¼ mile long. On the left , at that time, was a field of about 8 to 10 acres that was all grown up in weeds, broom grass and small pine trees. On the right of the drive way is a large field that was planted with a green crop, soybeans if I remember correctly. All the above is out in front of my house ,and at the edge of my yard, just in the edge of that 10 acre field, there was a good bit of construction debris, wooden pallets, scrap wood, card board Etc..
It had been really dry for weeks and I got the notion that it would be a good time to burn that stuff. I got my tractor and bushhog and cut several passes around the debris so it wouldn’t get into that dry brush. Then I set the debris on fire.
There was a pretty good wind blowing away from me toward the road in front of my place, with a slight angle to my left. On the left of that big field, there is a creek, with a lot of green growth on both sides of it. Well, that dry debris made one more big fire, big enough to create its own wind. Sparks and burning debris started going up and falling beyond my fire break. I started putting out the little blazes, but soon had more than I could keep up with.
Man, that fire started going across that field,with a blaze higher that the power lines that crossed it. I wasn’t worried about the fire crossing the creek on the left, nor about crossing into the bean field. But immediately downwind , where the road crossed in front of my place, was a hundred acres of pine trees, and I knew if that fire got across that road and into those pines I was going to be in a heap of trouble.
It was roughly a ¼ mile from the fires’ origin to the road. I grabbed a box of kitchen matches and some newspaper and jumped into my truck and drove out to the road and immediately started setting backfires. I had about a 300 yd front to deal with ,and by the time I had gotten about halfway or a little more I had some good backfires going, but I ran out of matches.
By this time, the fire was roaring across the field, flames shooting 80 t0 100 feet into the air, and a few of my neighbors from a mile away had come to watch . My neighbors are really nice folks, and they are all African American. I ran to the nearest guy and implored” do you have any matches?”
He was all bugged eyed at the sight of all that fire and he responded, “Whuffo you want any matches? Ain’ chu got enuff fiah outen in dat fiel to suit you?”
About that time the first of 4 volunteer fire department trucks rolled up followed almost immediately by the US Forest Service with a bull dozer on the back of a semi! The Forest Ranger was a female named Mary Crocker - No Immediate kin!! They made short work of my inferno, but didn’t seem to believe me when I told them I had it under control before they got there.
Mary informed me that due to us both being Crocker’s she would not fine me this time, “but if you ever light anything bigger that a cigar without calling us first, I’ll throw the book at you.”
The next morning,that whole 10 acres was black, the power poles were still smoking, and tendrils of smoke were wafting up from countless points. A friend of mine drove up,and came over to me , Clearly aghast at what he was seeing.
“ Crock, what in the hell happened?” You should have seen the look on his face when he tried to comprehend my answer.
“Fire ants , Harold. Worst case of fire ants I have ever seen!”
Until next time, stay safe and tell your loved ones that you do.
Your Pacolet Firebug
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