HISTORICAL COMMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

THE LUMBER CAMPS – part 2

Another tale out of the South Carolina lumber camps is the one about the time Grandpop thought he killed a man. These were rough times and his world surrounded him with rough men. Try to imagine a boy not yet 20 years old, 5 foot 7 inches tall and about 130 pounds in that environment. I would have to think that terror filled some of his thoughts. It certainly did that night when he was hanging around the company store, trying to relax and fit in.

Apparently, he was leaning up against the counter when a large man tripped over his feet trying to get by. First, the man cursed him and then came toward him stammering something about teaching him a lesson. Grandpop backed up until he was in a corner occupied by a lard barrel. In his desperation, he grabbed the paddle out of the lard barrel and swung it at his assailant. Now, a lard paddle is about three feet long and looks something like a boat oar. He said it was a terrible sound when the paddle made contact with the side of the man’s head. The man went down, spilling all the teeth from one side of his mouth.

At that point, Grandpop made a hasty exit, thinking that he surely must have killed the man. He went to another camp that very night and only after several weeks had passed did he learn that he had not killed the man. He said that he encountered the same man on a narrow path sometime later. He just knew that he was in for a beating. But, as they approached each other, the other man stepped aside and let him pass. It seems that no one mentioned to the man that he had been hit with a lard paddle. He just assumed that he had been hit by a fist and he wanted no more of the boy that could hit like a mule’s kick. Grandpop really liked this story. I heard this story many times over a period of 25 years and he never embellished it or wavered from the same facts.