Mount Pleasant Senior Living 2019

www.CharlestonRetiremen tLifestyle.com | www.Re t iringToSC.com | www.HotRetire mentTowns.com senior living SL and singing. What is now “the Old Village” was “uptown” or “downtown.” I loved to walk through Coleman’s Hardware store (now The Old Village Post House). Mr. Mashe was the postmaster, and most received their mail at the post office. I was too short to reach our combination box, so I just asked for our mail. The first haircut I remember was in Mr. Crosby’s chair. They called him “Bing.” The Zeiglers ran The Pitt Street Pharmacy. We went to Dr. Freeman before a new doctor, Otis Pickett, set up his office. There was no dentist in town, so my mother took us to Charleston. I remember running away from the barber and the dentist. There was no bank in town, so we traveled across the Grace Memorial Bridge to the South Carolina National Bank. I went to elementary school in the “new” two-story Mount Pleasant Academy, circa 1938, on the grounds of the now Moultrie Middle School. Harry Douty’s gas station and garage was located at the foot of the Shem Creek Bridge. After school, I stopped at Cope’s, bought a Popsicle and played the pinball machine if I had a nickel or two. When we swam off the Royall’s dock in Shem Creek, we floated up the creek to Buffy Green’s farm (now Cooper Estates) and stole a watermelon or two. Mathis Ferry Road Porches, Vegetable Banks and Country Living By Barbara Fordham Collier Vegetables were stored under the porch when I was a child. It was called “banking the vegetables,” and the spots were perfect for hide-and-seek. If the seekers took too long, a hearty snack and a little nap might be the outcome. “If you eat those raw vegetables, you’ll get ‘pain of stomach’ like you’ve never had!” the grown-ups would say. “Yeah right!” we thought. The frequent soirees we held in vegetable banks under a whole lot of porches assured us that these threats were idle. When our parents yelled, “Go get 10 sweet potatoes for dinner,” we prayed that there would be enough left. In Scanlonville, nearly every house had a porch, and every porch was used for more than decoration. Important, private, meaningful, long-lasting conversations were held on those porches. If someone was interested in building a future with you, a “little talk” on the front porch with the parents was vital. In addition, porches were havens for storytellers who were well fortified in food and drink. We listened while sipping sweet iced tea and enjoying the “cooling Cooper River breeze.” Gnats and mosquitoes reminded us that we were indeed “in the country.” Priming the hand-operated water pumps; going with cousins to move Jimmy, the cow, closer to or farther away from the house; and waiting for those seasons when the migrant workers exited buses and filed down Mathis Ferry Road headed to the fields all confirmed the truth of a different life in the country than that on the “other side” of the bridge. We sat on our old porches and relished a loving community complete with one huge live oak. We appreciated our ancestors, anticipated bright futures, praised our children’s efforts, ate enthusiastically, laughed unashamedly, bore one another’s burdens and enjoyed that feeling of safety that is often elusive to us. Life in Mayberry with a Pecan-Stealing, Fence-Jumping, Hitch-Hiking Childhood Partner in Crime By Billy Hennessy Growing up in Mount Pleasant was like growing up in Mayberry. In 1955, when I was 5 years old, my family moved from Charleston to Mount Pleasant into a one-story brick house on a dirt road at 7 Dawson Terrace, now 1351 Erckmann Drive. Kenny Kirchner was my childhood partner in crime, and I had a fun walk down memory lane thinking about our adventures below: • Fishing, crabbing, shrimping and occasionally falling off the Old Bridge. They call it the Pitt Street Bridge now. • Sitting on a stool at the Pitt Street Pharmacy fountain drinking a Cherry Coke. • Dancing at “Daniel’s Den” at Alhambra Hall on Photo courtesy of Barbara Fordham Collier. Photo courtesy of Billy Hennessy. Billy Hennessy, right, with his partner in crime, Kenny Kirchner. 187 www.RetiringToSC.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.ReadMP.com