Mount Pleasant Senior Living 2019

www.CharlestonReti r ementLifestyle.com | www.Retir i ngToSC.com | www .HotRetirementTowns.com senior living SL Friday night. • Exploring the haunted house next to Alhambra Hall. • Having the only policeman in Mount Pleasant, Skeeter Benton, confiscate my BB gun for shooting birds. He later delivered the gun to my house on a promise not to do it again. • Riding bikes into a cloud of DDT from the mosquito truck. • Cutting school and hitchhiking to the beach, sometimes with a surf board hanging out a window. • Having rotten tomato and cucumber fights at the packing sheds. • Jumping the fence at the Moultrie football games so we did not have to pay a quarter. • Having “Old Man” Royall catch us in his pecan trees stealing his pecans. Now Moultrie Shopping Center stands in the former grove. • Getting paid a nickel from Mr. Willard for picking up cigarette butts outside his hardware store. • Having Mr. Spoonheimer run us out of his air- conditioned drug store for reading comic books. The penguin on the door said, “Kool Inside.” • Hanging out at Choppy’s Gulf Station. • Buying candy and Cokes at Art Ruth’s 7 Day Store. Coke, including the bottle, was 10 cents. • … And, of course, climbing the water tower. Washing Sheets in an Old Ringer Washer and Dialing Four-Digit Phone Numbers By Sally Burn Sweatt At 12 years old, the product of a broken home, I told my part-time, weekend father that I wanted my own bed and to attend one school. Prior to that, I had gone to 11 schools. He was a traveling salesman with a little girl in tow, and he gravitated to the most beautiful, charming part of Charleston — East Cooper. He found us a little cement block house on Cameron Boulevard on Isle of Palms. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I had my own bed and fried my first buttermilk-battered chicken on a three-burner stove and a cast-iron skillet. Living on the island was like something out of a novel. Back then, it was quiet, and the houses were small, except for a few big ones scattered along the dunes. I washed our sheets in an old ringer washer under the palmetto tree while horn toads sunned on the patches of sandy grass. My dad and I crabbed at Breach Inlet, and I learned how to make deviled crab. We played bingo at Front Beach and fished off the old bridge on Sullivan’s Island. Everyone had four-digit phone numbers and a black clunky landline telephone. That same year the postal service implemented the Zoning Improvement Plan, or ZIP code. In 1965, my father and I moved to Simmons Street in Mount Pleasant so that I could walk to General William Moultrie High School. I cannot think of anything more idyllic than growing up on the coast of South Carolina. It was pure enchantment, splendor in the sun, beach music, friendly safe neighborhoods with unlocked doors — and all this while the Vietnam War raged on the other side of the world and on our TV screens. Wando’s First Tennis Team Loses to Ashley Hall By Russell Bridgham Wando High School opened in the fall of 1973, and I played on the school’s first tennis team in the spring of 1974. We only had one player with tennis experience, Jon Nason, who played No. 1 for us. We were so bad that Coach Ward, our physics teacher, initially ranked us based on how much we changed our service motion to get the second serve in. The highlight of the season was our match with Ashley Hall, a private school for girls. I played Mary Koester at No. 2 singles and was beaten badly in straight sets. In fact, I believe we lost all our matches to the girls, a 9 to 0 drubbing! Our rematch with Ashley Hall the next year went a little differently. Our Warrior team had improved. I was fortunate to play at the No. 1 position and luckily beat Margaret Bradham in straight sets. Our team won 7 to 2! Photo courtesy of Sally Burn Sweatt. Sally as a teenager in Mount Pleasant. Photo courtesy of Russell Bridgham. Russell Bridgham, top row, third from left, and the first Wando High School tennis team yearbook picture. Coach is top row, third from right. 188 ww .RetiringToSC.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.ReadMP.com