To some folks, its a town you pass by to get to Columbia, Camden, or other area cities. To its residents, its either a town you love or a town you can't wait to get out of. To a boy who grew up there and was pulled away at the age of 12, its where a part of his heart still remains. This town is no other than the small, inland town of Lugoff, South Carolina. Here, there is no theme park, there is no shopping mall, there are no tall buildings, there is no professional sports arena, and a traffic jam occurs once in a blue moon. All this town is made up of, to the outsider, is 4 major car dealerships, two grocery stores, a couple places to get a quick bite to eat, and a big American flag flying above the central part of town. Here, baseball games are played every summer at a small, three field baseball park one side of town. Here, a popular place to go to cool off from the high heat is the Lugoff Swim Club on another side of town. But none of these places is what makes Lugoff what it is.
I first became a part of this beautiful town on April 2, 1980. Growing up wasn't an easy thing to do, just as it isn't easy anywhere else. Going through school, trying to be a liked person, making friends, getting crushes on girls and competing to get their attention with other guys, and avoiding the occasional bullies was my typical attitude in Lugoff Elementary. Its hard to describe what all made those days so great because so many things fell in place to make it a great time. Going to PE and having recess were always the times I looked forward to everyday. Playing games at lunch and sitting with friends made school more enjoyable also. I could go on all day and tell the different things and memories that made elementary school so great, but its honestly too much stuff to write down. So I'll tell you about my favorite year there...5th grade, the last grade there.
My first honor of 5th grade was being one of three of the flag boys. I don't remember how I got this honor, but I do remember the feeling of getting up in the middle of class and taking down the American flag and the South Carolina state flag. Many people wanted to do it, but only three of us recieved the honor of doing it: Jeffrey, Nick, and me. Not much later, Nick wasn't taking the time to do the job and stopped helping out. So my best friend Josh filled in the gap and a new trio formed. Each morning before school and 15 minutes before school got out, our job was to (and supposively honorably) hang the flag up, then take it down and fold it properly. It sounds easy. Perhaps we made it difficult by cutting up so much. On windy afternoon days, we thought it was amusing to let the flag go after untying the tie on the bottom and letting the rope go, watching the flags flying freely 20 feet above our head. The class just outside the flagpole also thought it was amusing with the exception of the teacher. The fun lasted for about a minute or two, but then we watched it as it continued to fly freely and wondered when the wind would stop blowing so we could get the flag in. Yes, I almost missed buses because of that, but we still had fun. Also, it was great having to get up in the middle of class when a dark cloud approached. I can never forget us cutting up out there. For some reason, we had two words that made us crack up every time: texture and merchandise. Jeff, being the biggest clown out of the three of us, had a thing where he marched around the flag pole chanting "Text-ur-y...mer-chan-dise" and repeating. To put it quite frankly, we were nuts. Why they chose us to be the flag boys? I still have no idea. Obviously, they had no idea what they were doing. Being a flag boy was truly an honor. But that wasn't it that made 5th grade such an awesome year.
Crushes were a big thing for me around that time. And for 5th grade, there was only one...Meredith. What made her so great that she could capture my 11 year old heart and cause me to chase after her the whole year? Honestly, the only explanation I can give was because something inside of me never gave up in trying to become her boyfriend. No matter how many times this cute, long brown haired, brown-eyed girl told me she wasn't interested, no matter how many times she rolled her eyes when I tried to make her laugh (and I remember, I did a pretty poor job of doing it), no matter how many times I asked friends and they told me to forget about it, I still was gonna try. My heart burned to get a hug from her. But my hopes deminished when my friend, Jeff, became her boyfriend. He knew I liked her, but he liked her also. I was jealous for a little bit, but never too jealous. Sometimes I had to hide my feelings for her when he asked me what I thought of her. I believe they remained boyfriend/girlfriend for the entire year, but I never gave up hope of one day being hers. I continued this into my 6th grade year, but more about that later.
The final big event of our 5th grade year was a time every kid was looking forward to....graduation. Its the first graduation since kindergarten, and its somewhat of a symbol of a kid moving up towards the teenage years as they leave elementary school and go to middle school. Being a flag boy, I was able to hold the South Carolina state flag with Jeff holding the American flag in front of the capacity cafeteria crowd as our class came onto the stage. We recieved the closest resemblence to a high school diploma....a certificate saying "Congratulations." But it wasn't what we got for graduating, it was the whole idea of graduating that made it special. Leaving elementary school was exciting for everyone.
My 6th grade year was interesting. On the first day, my first observation was the clothes change. No longer was it cool to wear Morey Boogie or Ocean Pacific outfits...it was now Duck Head kaki shorts, Duck Head shirts, or Hypercolor shirts. In fact, you even had to wear your shirt a certain way or you'd get laughed at. I guess I had to learn that the hard way. While everyone crammed into the blacktop area just before school to chat, some played Wallball (and I'm sorry if I spelled it wrong if there is some way of spelling it) on the big wall outside the library. I tried, but after an 8th grader, 4 times bigger than me, threw a tennis ball what seemed like a 95 MPH fastball against my feeble back, I decided Wallball wasn't my thing. Recess was another exciting thing. Wallball was played, and since there were only 6th graders out there, I enjoyed playing and not having a small red circle on my back. Subjects got a little bit harder, of course. But grades, again, weren't a big focus for me. By the 6th grade, boyfriends and girlfriends were forming left and right and pretty soon, I was feeling left out. I didn't have any classes with Meredith so I rarely spoke with her. Though when I saw her in the cafeteria or halls, I got that tingly feeling of nervousness and could barely get out a "Hey". But since I still didn't get to speak to her much, I went for the alternatives...classmates, and boy, were there some cute ones! I used the most common method of asking a girl out in the 6th grade....through your friends. Yes, it was a bold move to do that because not only do you fear the rejection of the girl you're asking out, you're also fearing your friends' laughter or smirk. And I also made pretty sure that a girl showed signs of interest before I asked. I must have tried at least 6 times thoughout the year and each girl had a different response. There was the polite "No thank-you," the one you never heard back from, the "I'm not interested" response, the "I'm not sure" or "I'll tell you later" and you never heard from them again either, the "you're too wierd" comment was always interesting, and yes, the response of laughing in my face was also one I had. Altogether, I struck out. But after hearing what my dad had to say to me one day, I didn't really care anymore.
One day, I came home from school when my mother told me there was some big news my sister and I had to know. She waited for my dad to come home from work and when he did, they announced that he was being tranferred (through his job) to Charlotte in June. My first reaction was excitement. I loved going to Charlotte and seeing the tall buildings, going shopping in the big malls and going ice skating. Excitedly, I told everyone in school the next day. Some seemed happy for me, some seemed sad I was leaving, and some asked me how soon was I leaving. As the year was winding down, I began to realize how I might not ever see any of these people again. Then, the move to Charlotte didn't seem to be so exciting. As the last day of school flied by, I wanted everyone to give me a hug and wish me well in Charlotte. I wanted people to tell me goodbye and have fun. But when the final bell rang for the last period, everyone ran out of the doors, excited and filled with a burst of energy to get out of school and start the summer break. I walked home a little sad with the realization that that was the last time I would see a lot of those people I grew up with. But when June rolled in, the sadness left and ahead was a new place with new friends, new people, and a new home.