Let’s get this out of the way—none of the people in this story are real. Okay, maybe it’s better to say that all of the people in this story are real, but not in a bad way. This version of Lockhart, which is about nine miles from where I grew up in rural South Carolina, is actually a mashup of the real Lockhart, where my dad’s cousin Johnny Thomas ran the barber shop where we got our hair cut, with a healthy dose of Sharon, the town where I went to church and elementary school, and a little bit of York, all mixed in together.
The closest thing to real people in here are the Grapevine ladies. My mother, Frances Hartness, along with Faye Russell, and Helen Good were the network for all news in Western York County for decades. Mama held down the very tip of the Western triangle, with Miss Helen (“Tot”) in the middle of Sharon, and Miss Faye covering the Hickory Grove end of the news. All of these women were married, but in the 70s and 80s in the rural South, you just referred to these women as “Miss First Name.” It was the same as calling them “Aunt Faye” or “Aunt Helen,” which I certainly would have felt perfectly natural doing. Miss Faye is the only one of the trio still around, after Miss Tot’s passing last year and my mother’s death two years prior, but she’s still spry and sharp as a whip, as we say.
None of my family talk to dead people. Well, I was being completely sincere about one thing—all Southerners talk to dead people, and country folk more than most. So pretty much everyone in my family talks to dead people. Just for us, they don’t talk back. A lot of times I wish they would.
So, this was in no way intended to mock small town Southern life. It’s much more a love letter to the people who raised me, who taught me how to take care of people, how to respect people, and how to be proud of where you’re from. Because I am proud of growing up a country boy. I still drive my pickup truck, call my daddy “sir,” and pull over to the side of the road when a funeral procession comes along. And my tea will always be sweet, thank you very much.
So I want to thank the people that didn’t even know they contributed to this book: Dr. Clyde & Nora Mitchum, Nora Jean Hope, Hazel Montgomery, Bonnie & Jean Dowdle, Faye & Margaret Hood, Bill & Lib Shillinglaw, Bo & Henny Mickle, and so many more. I appreciate the lessons they taught me. I haven’t forgotten where I came from, and I never will.
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