I scored my first goal as a high school soccer player during my senior year. We were playing our cross-town rivals, Riverside, on their home field. The Warriors had a pretty good team but we were the ones fighting for a spot in the postseason. Winning our last game of the regular season against them was paramount if we wanted to be back in the playoffs. We’d made it all the way to the upper state finals the year before and were hoping to return. We were in what was then called the Peach Blossom Conference in South Carolina’s 3-A high school classification. We were also in a tie for conference champion with Clinton. The tie breaker was the difference between goals scored versus goals allowed, with the higher number having the advantage. In other words, a victory against Riverside would give us a winning season and send us to the playoffs, score enough points and we could also be the Peach Blossom soccer champions for ‘79-80.
I really liked playing at Riverside for two reasons, with the first being they played their games at night on their football field, under the lights. But the biggest reason I Iiked playing them was I knew most of the guys on their team. Many of us had gone to Greer Middle School together since it fed both of our high schools back then. I also rode skateboards with a couple of guys who went to Riverside. Knowing guys on their soccer team didn’t make us go easy on one another and matches against them usually became contentious and argumentative. The Riverside guys also knew that by beating us they could ruin our season. There would be no playoffs, no winning season and no chance at being conference champs.
The first forty-five minutes of that match were tightly contested and the score was 2-2 at the half. There’d been no serious altercations other than a few incidental fouls that were handled in quick order. Both teams played like they belonged on the field that night. We were probably ten minutes into the second half when the first fight broke out. Me and a guy named Jeff both chased down a loose ball and I got to it before he did, but he executed a perfect slide tackle to poke it away. We both went down and as we scrambled to get back up, our legs became tangled. I was scurrying as I stared down the ball and I pushed off with my foot. As I did I felt my cleat dig into Jeff’s leg. I also heard him grimace. I didn’t think all that much of it since I hadn’t intended to hurt him in my effort to run down that black & white ball. I got to it first when I felt something hit the right side of my face from behind. I turned and it was Jeff and he looked pissed. He was already winding up to take another swing, so I got ready to block it and swing right back. We both threw a couple of haymakers before the benches cleared and the refs broke it up. When the dust settled I was given a yellow card, but Jeff was given a red card which ejected him from the game. Per the rules, Riverside would have to play a man down the rest of the way. With the score still tied, this gave us an edge and an even better chance to reward a season of hard work with a trip to the playoffs.
Then, about midway into the second half, it happened. While on offense the ball was crossed deep into the left side of the field, where I played wing. I easily beat the defender to the ball and would have normally turned the ball back towards the goal to set up a teammate for a shot. However, the defender was already filling that space, so I decided to try one of my tricks. I swung at the ball with my left foot like I was attempting to cross it. This caused the defender to instinctively brace for the ball since he’d be in its intended path. My ‘fake kick’ bought me the extra second I needed to make my next move. When the Riverside defender blinked, I reversed the ball backwards and behind me with my left foot. Then I pivoted to my left, back towards the ball, with my head up looking for a good spot to make a pass across the box. With the ball now sitting in front of me with plenty of room to make a right footed cross, I waited for a teammate to make a run and take my pass. I also noticed their keeper had come out of his goal and wasn’t guarding the far post at all. So I decided to shoot my shot. With the ball still rolling away from me slightly, and my beaten defender recovering in an effort to slow me down, I swung hard with my right leg and made contact with the bottom half of the ball. Then everything went into slow motion as the ball traveled its banana-shaped path through the air, up and over the keeper's head. I began to think I’d kicked it too hard and it would travel beyond the goal and carry out of bounds. But at the peak of its flight it began to dip hard to the left, thanks to all the spin I’d placed on the ball when I booted it. The keeper watched helplessly as the ball dropped below the cross bar and caught the top of the far post then ricocheted into the back of the net.
We ended up exchanging another couple of goals and won by a score of 4-3. We had a winning season and would play Wren in the first round of the playoffs a week later where I’d score a left-footed goal in another win. But we lost out on the conference championship because Clinton had won their final regular season game by a wider margin.
Not long after our soccer season ended, I managed to get myself arrested for something really stupid. I was driving around with some of my buddies who were all a year or two younger than me. We stopped at our old middle school and one of them jumped out of my truck and decided to break out the cafeteria window for reasons I still don’t understand. Like I said, it was stupid. It was a plexiglass window so it didn’t even really break as much as it popped inward and landed on the cafeteria floor. The problem was that it happened in broad daylight and people lived nearby. As we left, one of those neighbors got my tag number. The next day a police officer was at my parents door asking me questions. What I learned that day was that in South Carolina you become an adult, at least in the eyes of the law, when you turn seventeen. Since I was seventeen and my friend, the one who committed the infraction, was still a minor, I was the one who got in trouble for breaking and entering. Lesson learned. They took me to the police station then booked and released me. I went to court and was given first-time offender status and only had to pay a small fine since the window wasn’t actually broken. The other part of my penance was having to do some community service work, which led to another first: being on the cover of the Sunday edition of our local daily newspaper. This was back when everyone still read their local daily paper, especially on Sundays. That meant a lot of people saw my picture on the front page of the Lifestyles section of the Greenville News.
To be fair, I wasn’t actually required to do community service as part of my atonement. When I went to court they realized I wasn’t exactly a menace to society and they gave me some soft-serve options. I could have picked from about a dozen different things, but I chose to do community service work at an organization called Upstate Urban Ministries. For a couple of months I spent two afternoons a week at an all-black day-care program. There was another adult worker and I was their assistant. We both hung out with elementary age kids until someone came to pick them up. When the last one left I got to go home.
When our local newspaper found out some skinny, white teenager from Greer was volunteering at a black outreach center they decided to do a human interest piece about me. The day of the interview they sent a staff photographer and even got kids from other classrooms to come out to participate in the fun. The reporter asked me about a dozen questions and then they let me play with the kids like I always did, which consisted of most of them wanting to touch my blond hair. I always let them.
The next Sunday, right there on the front of the Lifestyles section, was a picture of me with these kids, my new friends. The funny thing is they never seemed to know why I chose to be there on those days and they never bothered to ask. The reporter presumed it was something I was inclined to do. It really was a lot of fun, regardless of why I did it.
That newspaper article ended up getting me called to the guidance counselor’s office. Mr. Pearson, our school’s guidance counselor, tracked me down because he’d read the story about my volunteer work which made him decide to look over my transcripts. He told me he’d noticed most of my grades had been pretty good, although he did mention my dip during a portion of my junior year to which we both rolled our eyes. Mr. Pearson then told me I should consider applying to college. While I’d thought about it, I had no clue where to start because we never talked about college at my house, it wasn’t part of the narrative. We were ostensibly blue collar people and that was that. I think that fact became apparent to Mr. Pearson as we chatted. My guidance counselor explained how he could assist me with filling out forms for grants and whatnot, but someone on my end would have to be willing to help out financially. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t speechless because I was surprised that someone thought I was bright enough to go to college, I was at a loss for words because I realized I was going to have to ask my dad if he could, or would, help me pay for tuition. As excited as I was about the prospect of being a college student, I was dreading having to ask my ol’ man a question about anything.
When I got home that afternoon, I immediately told my mom about my conversation with Mr. Pearson. She bubbled at the thought of her eldest son going to college, but she also knew that meant having a conversation with her husband about it. She said we should do it right after supper, when my dad sat down in his recliner to finish reading the newspaper.
Later that evening, right after we finished eating, was the first time my dad spoke directly to me since my denunciation of his ties with the Ku Klux Klan. But please understand, I don’t want to make my dad out to be something he wasn’t. I’ve never personally witnessed him put his hands on another person, for what that’s worth, although I’d long since lost track of how many times he had tanned my hide, always with his belt. I’d also hung around him long enough and been with him in enough places I wasn’t supposed to be that I had overheard some crazy tales about Tommie Dean. I’d heard those stories more times than I could count, so I knew what he was capable of. After the summer when I turned twelve, when he made me join the Ku Klux Klan and I quit a few weeks later, he shaded me big time. His demeanor around me became solemn and imposing. The way I was able to tell he held me in contempt was how I noticed him treating my two younger brothers during that same time of our lives. He was engaged and did things with them. They weren’t invisible to him like I was.
As soon as my dad adjourned to his recliner that evening, my mom motioned for me to follow her to our den where my dad was catching up on the local news. She sat down in her usual spot on the end of the couch and I sat in a chair next to our television. Judy-O interrupted my dad with “Darling, Phillip has something he would like to tell us.” This prompted my dad to lower the newspaper to his lap and look at her, then at me. For the first time in over five years, my dad and I made deliberate eye contact. I immediately launched into my story about Mr. Pearson, getting called to his office about my grades and applying to college, the whole thing. I was nervous and it probably showed, but my dad remained his stoic self. I even explained how I planned to pay for a significant portion myself, but I still might need some help. I concluded with “So, is there any way you could help me pay for college if I could get accepted?”
It took him about one second to respond with “No.” He raised his paper back up and continued reading. I looked at my mom dejectedly, and she mouthed the words “I’m sorry.” I got up and ever-so-slightly sulked my way to my room. I wasn’t all that surprised, but it was still disappointing. I’d hoped that day would be the one where my dad would decide to bury the hatchet. In spite of the fact that I was getting used to being treated with such indifference by Tommie Dean, there was still a part of me that wanted to know he was proud of my accomplishments. I thought by showing him that other adults, like our school’s guidance counselor, held me in high esteem that he might decide to like me once more. Instead, it would be another five years before he and I would ever speak again.
Even though my dad wasn’t willing to help me pay for college, it didn’t mean I wouldn’t be attending an institution of higher learning. Shortly before I graduated from Greer High in 1980 I met with a representative from Greenville Tech, our local community college that offered associates degrees in a variety of areas. While I was considering joining the Navy, I happened to venture into the school library where a Greenville Tech spokesperson was chatting with some of my classmates. I listened in and found out they offered accredited two-year programs in subjects like criminal justice, nursing and a handful of industrial vocations like welding and auto mechanics. I decided to hang around to chat with the rep to provide her a rundown of my grades and the types of classes I’d taken. When I shared my grades in advanced algebra & biology, she was intrigued in me as a potential student and had me take a placement test. I found out that I would be an ideal candidate for one of their engineering programs.
Greenville Technical College was already well-established because they offered associates degrees in disciplines like mechanical and industrial engineering. They even had a new engineering program dedicated to digital electronics. This was due to the proliferation of computer-based technologies that had sprung up during the previous decade. Both Greenville and Spartanburg counties, thanks to the textile industry’s historical stronghold in the area, had a wide variety of high-tech manufacturing plants that needed well-educated technicians to keep their new-fangled equipment up and running. Obtaining an electronics engineering degree from GTC would mean I’d always have a job. Since Greenville Tech wasn’t terribly expensive, I knew I could work enough to pay for it when I graduated high school.
Once I decided to pursue the path of electronics engineering I was told I might qualify for what GTC called a Technical Scholarship. This program placed qualified candidates at local manufacturing plants that required the same expertise as those enrolled in GTC’s engineering programs. The way it worked was that upcoming engineering students interviewed with these same local companies. Then the companies picked which student was the best fit for their work environment and would inform their GTC representative of their choices. If selected, the new employer would not only allow those students to work with other technicians and engineers as part of their training, but they’d also pick up the tab for all tuition costs. The students' work schedules revolved around their classes at GTC, which allowed them to work about twenty hours per week. I applied and ended up getting picked by the local plastics plant in Greer, which is still in operation and sits a few miles away from my current home near the Enoree River. Years ago, when Alison and I were raising our own family, we’d ride by that establishment during the evening hours, when the bright yellow light emitted by that facility glowed ominously through the trees that separated it from the surrounding area. One of my children once asked me what it was that made the golden glow on the horizon. I playfully told them it was the WIllie Wonka Chocolate Factory and that I used to work there helping to make a wide variety of confections with the Oompa-Loompas. To this day, my kids and I still call it the Chocolate Factory even though they now know I was freestyling most of my responses whenever they asked me unimportant questions back then.
In the fall of ‘80, while attending Greenville Tech, I also took another significant leap-of-faith. I’d long since made up my mind to be nothing like my parents, at least in the societal sense. So I had to figure out how to be someone other than the person I’d been raised to be. All I knew was that friends of mine who seemed more normalized went to church on a regular basis whereas I was an outlier. Keep in mind that I’d set foot inside the doors of a church only a few times by that point of my life and those occasions had been when I was much younger. So it wasn’t like I knew what to expect other than how I’d seen church portrayed on television. I knew congregations were presided over by a preacher man, read from the bible and it was all about God and doing good things for others, especially the less fortunate. Those congregants were trying, or at least acting like they were trying, to be better people. Since I also wanted to be a better person, going to church seemed like a logical thing to do.
Soon after my epiphany about church, I walked across the street to my childhood friend’s house. Shane and I sat on his porch and chatted about whatever, just like the previous time we sat on that same porch. Then I asked him if they were going to church the upcoming weekend. This caught him off-guard because he and I never talked about church, even though he knew that I knew they went every Sunday. Whenever Shane and I got together we usually talked about sports, our favorite rock bands or girls, we never talked about anything related to religion. My neighbor stammered that they were probably going and then he asked me why I wanted to know. I said I’d like to go with them if it was alright. About that time Shane’s mom walked out and he told her what I’d said. She was so happy that she lit up like a dang Christmas tree.
The morning Shane and I rode to church with his parents, I looked fresh. When my neighbors agreed to take me with them that weekend, I immediately went out and bought some new duds so I’d look the part. That Sunday morning at Washington Baptist Church everyone was especially nice. They asked me thoughtful questions and made me feel comfortable. There might have been about two hundred people in the worship service, mostly humble families from the local community. I recognized some of the teenagers from school but didn’t know them very well.
One of the teenage girls seemed to really like me and we ended up chatting after the church service. Her name was Sandy and she and her parents were regular members. When I went back the following week, she found me and made a point to ask me to sit with her. We quickly figured out we both knew how to sign the alphabet, which I’d learned from a back issue of an old Boys Life magazine. Since we weren’t supposed to talk during the worship service, we signed words to one another. Turned out, we had a lot more in common than sign language. Next thing I knew I was spending time at her house hanging around her family. They were really cool and talked to me like they were glad I was there. Sandy’s family treated me the way I secretly desired my own family would treat me but never did.
The next thing I knew she and I were dating. Her parents even began including me in many of their family activities. We were visiting Sandy’s grandparents on Saturdays and we were in a bowling league every Tuesday evening as a foursome. My life had suddenly become so wholesome it could’ve been a Norman Rockwell painting. It was also the first time in my life - at least since I was a little kid and didn’t know any better - that I felt conventional. Sandy’s family and those kind congregants at Washington Baptist Church made me feel wanted and included. They gave my life the kind of stability that had been missing since the day my dad nonchalantly gave five-year-old me a push for my first bicycle ride down a tree lined sidewalk in the mill village where we used to live. I innocently thought my inaugural bike ride had been my first glimpse of freedom. While it did serve to remind me there was a big ol’ world out there to explore, it was also an indicator, an omen, that my dad’s view of me was much more complicated than I could have ever imagined. Consequently, I wasn’t as important to him as I could’ve been, and most likely should’ve been. In actuality, that first ever bike ride, orchestrated by a guy who thought training wheels were too much trouble to be fooled with for his tow-headed preschooler, was my first indication that the people raising me had been ill-equipped to do so.
Within a matter of a few weeks of attending Washington Baptist Church I met with their pastor, Billy Cashion. He and I’d already spoken a few times following the Sunday morning worship services. Billy seemed genuinely interested in my well-being. I also understood, without anyone having to explain it to me, it was expected that I take the next step to become an official member of the body of Christ, which is to say I needed to formally join the church. For someone like me, this involved the physical act of sincerely asking God for forgiveness of all the sins I’d committed along the way. That also included a proclamation to do my utmost to follow in Jesus’s footsteps and to be Christlike in every sense of the Word. After I’d met with Billy and sincerely prayed for these things, he told me the upcoming Sunday morning would be an ideal time to present myself to the church as someone who desired to make a public profession of my faith and become a member. This was expected of everyone who wants to join a church body and it’s more or less the way to make your membership official. There is one caveat for those who are joining a church body for the very first time, like me. In those instances the new congregant will also need to be baptized with the baptismal process varying by denomination. Some religions sprinkle the individual with some holy water while others do a total immersion. The baptist faith does total immersions for their first-time believers. Most like-minded churches perform these baptisms en masse once every month or two as an addendum to the normal worship service. Some churches still do that outside in a local pond or lake. But no matter where you do it, if you’re going to become a Christian in a southern baptist church, you will be taking the plunge as an outward expression of Jesus entering your heart and becoming the essence of your existence during your time in this realm. By that stage of my life, as a misguided eighteen-year-old young man, I was eager for this type of change. I welcomed it and everything that came with it, including Sandy and her family.
The next Sunday morning, as I sat with Sandy and her parents, they were excited when I told them about joining the church, which meant walking down front during the ‘altar call’ that concluded the morning's services. At the appropriate moment I got up and nervously made my way down front to where Pastor Cashion was waiting. He beamed when he saw me walking down the aisle. As I met him, he shook my hand and we prayed again. Then the music stopped and he had me turn to face the congregation. Everyone looking back at me with their big, cheerful smiles was reassuring. I was officially a member and it felt as if a ginormous weight had been lifted.
I ended up telling a lot of my friends about becoming a Christian and most of them were genuinely happy for me. When I told Alison she was ecstatic. She asked me about being baptized and I let her know we were doing it during an upcoming Sunday evening service. If you don’t know this about baptist churches in the south, they can’t do just Sunday mornings. They’ll have a second, scaled-down worship service on Sunday evenings. They might even have a Sunday afternoon pot-luck dinner after church that encouraged its congregants to hang around and fellowship even more. Alison not only told me she would be there for my baptism, she even bought me a bible with her own money, which I still have. I was moved to know that such a good friend would invest in me so thoughtfully.
While many of my friends were uplifting me in my decision to become a Christian, my own family not so much. When I told my mom about my pending baptism, she seemed to think I was joking. When I let her know I was serious, she looked at me with disgust and let loose. Her sudden rebuke of the church institution was scathing and dismissive. Nevertheless, I told her she was welcome to come to my baptism and that I hoped she could make it. Since I knew my dad had been raised in a protestant church as a kid, I secretly hoped my Christian conversion might win him over and make him like me again. However, the evening of my baptism not a soul from my family came. Of all the friends I’d told, the only person who came out to Washington Baptist Church that Sunday evening was Alison.
Fast forward twelve months and I was in my second year at GTC as a Technical Scholar and things had fallen in place the way I’d hoped. My grades were better-than-average and I’d gotten my feet under me working as an apprentice technician at the Chocolate Factory. Better yet, my assimilation into the baptist church culture was going gangbusters. I was participating in lots of church-related activities, including their bible study groups. I also played on the men’s basketball team and helped with youth groups. I felt like I belonged. The shadow of my grade school years, where I never felt like I quite measured up to many of my peers, was like a set of fading tail lights in a late night rear view mirror. I was filled with more confidence than ever. I even gained the admiration of the older guys I worked with by always volunteering for the hardest jobs. There was nothing to which I said no, and before long they quit asking me to do those types of things out of respect. I’d also gained the approval of Sandy’s parents and they were including me in practically every one of their family activities. They always gave Sandy and I our space when she and I would retire to their side porch where we lounged into the evening. Between my college studies, my own-the-job training and my surrogate family, life was extraordinary. More than anything, I felt like the stars were finally aligned in my favor - better yet, I did it all with no help from my own family.
One day, around the holidays, Sandy and I were doing some last-minute Christmas shopping and ended up at K-Mart. As soon as we walked in the door, I heard a familiar voice call my name. It was Alison. She was working there during the holidays while she was home on break from her freshman year at Winthrop College. I hadn’t seen her since before Jimmy, one of my best friends, had left for Germany to be an Army soldier, which by then had been about nine months prior. As I held Sandy’s hand, I introduced them to one another. Then Alison and I chatted and it must have been obvious we both had a history together even though we’d not spoken in almost a year. We asked each other about mutual friends and then she told me about Winthrop and I told her about Greenville Tech. I finally got around to asking her about Jimmy. Alison looked at me glumly and said they’d recently broken up, which caught me by surprise. I’d always thought that she and Jimmy would probably get married, but only because they had dated for so long. She didn’t go into a lot of detail other than to say that she’d gone off to college and realized she didn’t want to date him any longer. She didn’t say there was someone else or offer any other reason. I remember that it made me feel sad for Jimmy. He’d had a rough life, rougher than mine in some ways. His parents divorced when he was young and things would sometimes become tenuous at his house. There were nights when I’d invite him over for supper and to hang out until he would have to walk home to go to bed. I could also see how the baggage Jimmy carried occasionally weighed on Alison. So I understood how she could have come to the eventual conclusion that she did about the health of her relationship with one of my very best friends.
When Sandy and I finished our Christmas shopping, she started asking me questions about Alison and I did my best to answer as honestly as possible. I explained that we’d been good friends a few years back and she became the girlfriend of one of my closest childhood friends. I explained how I felt bad for Jimmy because nobody enjoys getting jilted by their love interest, no matter the circumstances. I also told her I thought he might be able to come home from Germany and patch things up. Sandy seemed satisfied although I definitely detected a hint of bitterness over the fact I hadn’t told her about Alison before that day.
A week later my phone rings and it’s Alison. She asked me if I wanted to come over to her parents house to hang out before she had to drive back to Winthrop after the holidays. At first I was overjoyed that she wanted to spend some more time catching up. I was also a bit hesitant because I was certain Sandy wouldn’t like the idea. I also felt like my relationship with Alison was completely platonic and that it was silly to tell her I couldn't come over without a legitimate reason. Even so, I still knew better than to tell Sandy about it. I did feel a twinge of guilt for not letting her know, but only because I thought she would overreact. During that time of my life I still believed Jimmy would come home from Germany and that he and Alison would eventually work out their differences and get back together. In light of that, I was honorable enough that I managed to keep in-check any personal feelings I had for Alison. However, nineteen-year-old me didn’t yet possess the wherewithal to be able to explain it to Sandy in a way that she wouldn’t feel threatened so I never told her.
The following day I drove to Alison’s house around dusk. We sat on a couch in their den and talked. Before we knew it midnight came and went, so I told her I should probably go. The worst thing that happened was I managed to spill grape juice on their carpet, which Alison and I worked furiously to clean up so her parents wouldn’t know. We had great fun catching up on the last couple of years, laughing pretty much the entire time. We promised to stay in touch and write to one another while she was at Winthrop. After a congenial hug I was on my way. I never told Sandy I stopped by Alison’s and if I had it to do over again I would’ve done it the exact same way. It wasn’t that I didn’t care for Sandy, but I also knew she’d most likely take umbrage if she knew I’d spent time with another girl, even if that girl were only a friend.
Alison and I stayed in touch during the weeks that followed. We wrote letters back and forth and there were occasional phone calls to fill the void. She came home from Winthrop a few times and we’d find some excuse to steal away and get an ice cream. Things remained completely innocent during this time and we never professed our undying love for one another and we were never intimate in any way other than the good-bye hugs we always shared when we parted. The only thing that changed was we both seemed to hold our gaze a little bit longer when we spoke to one another. It was like we both felt a simultaneous tug towards something we couldn’t yet articulate. But it was real, we both knew that much.
Then one week during the winter months of ‘82, Alison called me up and invited me to Winthrop. The offer was for the entire weekend. She’d already worked out the details where I could stay with a guy friend from Greer whose roommate would be gone for the weekend. That gave me a place to sleep without being an inconvenience to anyone. I initially thought it was a great idea until I hung up the phone and realized I couldn’t tell Sandy that I was going to spend the weekend in Rock Hill with Alison. So after waffling over that all week, the day before I was supposed to drive to Winthrop I called Alison and I gave her some cockamamie excuse for not being able to visit. I did it because I didn’t think it was cool to go and keep it a secret from Sandy. I also figured it was effectively a zero sum game, maybe less than zero. Even though Alison was gracious upon hearing that I wouldn’t be able to make it, I felt bad that I’d lied to her. As soon as I hung up the phone I regretted my decision. I think it was the first time I ever considered that Alison and I were meant to be together.
Then fate, as it’s known to do, intervened once again. The week following my decision to forego my trip to see Alison, Sandy dropped a bombshell. She told me, over the phone, that “Maybe we should take a break.” Normally, when you’re dating someone and they tell you this, it’s not always well received. Yet I immediately saw it as a reprieve. I knew it cleared the murky waters I’d been attempting to navigate with Alison. It meant that I could go to Rock Hill anytime I wanted to without doing something behind Sandy’s back. However, she was a bit surprised that I wasn’t upset. It seemed Sandy expected me to put up a fight. Nope, I told her I was good. As soon as Sandy and I hung up I called Alison and told her two things. First I told her that I had to apologize about the lame excuse I’d made for not coming the previous weekend. I also told her Sandy and I had broken up and I would love to come to Rock Hill to see her. I still have the notes I made from the directions she gave me over the phone: I-85 north to exit 102, then turn onto highway 5 and take it all the way to Rock Hill. She told me her room was 220 and it was located in the Margaret Nance dormitory.
Even though I still felt a twinge of guilt about spending time with Alison because of her past relationship with Jimmy, my mind was made up. By then, I’d already figured out that the toughest commitments in my life would involve trying to decide which bridges to burn and which bridges were worth crossing. So I hopped in my car and made the drive to see Alison. It would end up being the best decision I’d ever make.
© 2023 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.
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