To the Editor:
Congratulations to Andy for his renovation of the depot building. The final product will be a stunning example of what a building should have been, had craftsmen known then what they know now.
I remember it as a pretty disheveled, utilitarian space that was designed to absorb the rigors of commerce and travel. Like the romantically recreated buildings at Williamsburg, Va. the new depot will recall our past at its most evocative.
I include a photograph of a piece of the building in question.
The picture of the three boys was taken, I guess, about 1948. It too is a romanticized version of the “good old days.”
I include the picture as a partial examination and refutation of an article I wrote several months ago in which I said my brothers and I had been misrepresented as brigans and troublemakers. After I viewed the long-forgotten photograph of us in front of the depot, I wanted to apologize. We obviously were bad a lot.
Don’t let the scout uniforms and hugs fool you. By thetime the picture was taken, my medical records report broken bones, contusions and general physical mayhem that my brothers visited on me. The rest, as Hamlet might have said had he survived, was even more harrowing.
Nevertheless, Mike, the oldest, went on to be Wofford College’s longest serving dean of students.
Dee, despite his death-ray stare, has always been a unique and popular real estate developer and county commissioner.
When people ask me if I’m related to him, I say I try not to talk about it, and we all smile knowingly.
I survived to teach English for over 40 years.
— P.L.(Buck) Preston