It Was A Hot Summer - The Summer of '70

The Vietnam war was still going on, Congress was talking about giving the vote to 18 year olds, The Beatles had broken up and their last song, The Long and Winding Road, was at the top of the charts, and the class of '71 was preparing for the upcoming year in a still relatively new school building. Susan Rutledge was getting the cheerleaders ready for  camp in Leesburgh Florida and the football captains were getting the team ready with work-outs at Harmon Field. Most boys got a nickel post card from the football coaches like this:

Several football players had been running 5 miles a day at Harmon Field on a course that Shank Hipp had marked off with his car (to verify the distance). We thought we were in pretty good shape and talked about demonstrating our ability with a run to Spartanburg........and back!

Talk about frontal lobes not working!

Anyway, with the arrival of the post cards, time was running out. Michael Burns and Jim Vining took off on a Saturday a little before noon to make the trip. No water - no id - very little money - and they didn't tell anyone what they were doing.

The route was to be down US-176 to Heron Circle (in Spartanburg) and back - about 50 miles.

The pair made it to Landrum and stopped in Tasty Freeze for something to drink. Then to Campobello to a peach packing shed for water (out of a hose) and a peach. By the time they made it to the I-26 bridge, they knew a round trip was not going to happen. The choice became - turning around or going forward.

What would be the achievement in turning around? The honor of saying we had run to Spartanburg won out (where were those frontal lobes?).

When we finally made it to Heron Circle, it was late in the day - we had no money, no way to call anyone, and no way back except the way we had come. We did what everyone did back then - started thumbing our way back to Tryon.

Remember, we had just come 26 miles on a hot day, we were not in the best condition to catch a ride.

Surprisingly, we got a ride pretty quick which took us from Heron Circle to Pine Street. From this point, the wait was a little longer. Finally, a car headed toward Spartanburg (with 4 people), crossed over the median and pulled up beside us - asked us if we were going to Tryon (one or both of us was wearing an old Tryon Jersey) - they said they recognized the jersey. We said yes, they told us to get in - which we did.

On the way back, they invited us to go to a dance with them to the "Moon-Lite Grill" in Tryon. They said they would set us up with some girls. The Moon-Lite Grill was in the old Edmund Embury School - a former all black school.

We declined because we were in no shape after going 26 miles on a hot summer day.

Take aways from this experience - You are never in as good a shape as you think, I doubt either of us has ever run a long distance since, distances seem much shorter now, we were extremely lucky that day and - maybe this was an omen of the football season to come.