This quasi-chronological series of anecdotes is a meandering rejoinder to how I survived some Kafkaesque family dysfunction, which includes my dad making me join the Ku Klux Klan with him back in the seventies when I was only twelve. About a third of the way into this writing project, I realized I was essentially creating the diary I never began when I was much younger. I suspect that had I constructed a personal journal along the way, and then made an abridged version of it, this memoir would have been the result.

It doesn’t shame me to say that I shed more tears over this writing endeavor than anything I’ve ever cried about, not even close. Another central figure in this story is my mother. Her dad, my maternal grandfather, always called her Judy-O. My mom went on to the next realm a little over a decade ago. She was one of a kind and not always in a good way. To her credit and despite her doctor’s orders, she left us on her terms: cigarette in hand and breathing her last breath in a ramshackle little trailer in the same textile mill village where I’d cut some of my own teeth during my teens. Wherever she is now, I’m absolutely certain my mom knows the reason why I’ve decided to write this down.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (Preface)

The specific question I seem to get more and more often is due to some degree of consternation from others about how I turned out the way they seem to perceive me to now be. I don’t think I’ve yet met a person who wasn’t confused by my misadventures regarding how things ended up. This series of stories, a personal essay of sorts, is a method to chronicle those escapades and some of the more noteworthy events that occurred along the way. There’s at least one part I’m not sure I have the words for yet. I’ll try to get to that one later on down the road. By the way, most of those roads, literally and figuratively, traverse my home state of South Carolina, here in the southeastern United States. The Palmetto State is an interesting place to cultivate a sense of self when your formative years are so heavily influenced by the fact that plenty of folks here are still drinking the same ol’ Kool Aid.

Full disclosure: I really didn’t know that my life would be a source of fascination for others until I finally decided to begin sharing some of those incidents that have occurred during my time on this rock. Consequently, I’ve lost track of the people who have implored me to jot down some of mine, although each passing word of encouragement was likely nudging me here, to the point where I’d have to contemplate and piece together the requisite words to make it all make some sense, even if just to myself. There are probably a few people, maybe more, who will think these tales are some sort of subterfuge I’ve fabricated in an effort for some limelight. They’re not, even though I can see why some might have an issue with my take on things. While I may not remember it all in vivid technicolor detail, I’m mindful that it doesn’t become some purple prose I’ve conjured up from my own imagination.

About fifteenish years ago, I spent a memorable evening with my lovely daughter’s Creative Writing professor, a published author himself. This occurred while she was a student at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts in Greenville, SC. George Singleton and I shared some tribal knowledge, as well as a few war stories, over way too many Jack & Cokes that fateful evening. He also told me I really should write down some of mine. Then, a couple of years ago, someone for whom I have a great deal of admiration, the environmental artist/activist Mary Edna Fraser, heard a few of these stories during a group dinner in Charleston. After getting over her initial shock, Mary Edna implored me to write my memoir. I’ve never forgotten those two conversations and the sense of being filled with inspiration.

To say that my past, my southern upbringing, was one fraught with lost souls is an understatement. My mom had a cousin, Adeline, who was well-known for her promiscuous behavior. I was probably seven or eight when I overheard my mom say her cousin was a prostitute. While it was probably the first time I’d ever heard that word, I somehow knew what it meant, intuitively, after meeting my first cousin, once removed. She was a seductive, raven-haired siren, but more than anything, she was extremely vampish around young men who couldn’t look away. It was only a few years later that I realized she had the power to make me sweat solely by looking at me. Adeline had the innate ability to hold my attention to the point where I got the impression she’d like to have a few minutes with me, alone. My mom’s younger brother, my unctuous Uncle Frankie, spent much of his youth in reform schools due to his own petulance. Last time I checked, he was still having run-ins with the law for a variety of reasons, including several acts of arson as well as a fairly recent rape case. There was also a well-documented scuffle with the town’s mayor in his own front yard. Not a good look. My irascible younger brother, the one they call Earl, has spent some time in prison at Cross Anchor Correctional facility. It was for assault and battery with intent to kill, and he went behind bars while he was still a teenager. I’ve honestly lost track of the crazy things he’s done since then, which includes being named High Times magazine’s Bud of the Month back in the late 80s. Last time I saw him, he still had a hard copy of the issue and liked to show it off to anyone who’d listen. But there have also been numerous jewelry store robberies involving stolen school buses and other such occurrences he’s masterminded over the years. I’ve been told more than once that he knows to steer clear of going back to Charlotte due to some run-ins with the law last time he visited our neighbors to the north. For that matter, I was arrested once during my teens and spent the night at the Greenville County Law Enforcement Center, although my crime paled in comparison to the questionable stuff my brother had done. Of course, there was my dad - the one who raised me - who was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan for quite some time back in the 60s & 70s. He became an officer in the KKK, and his responsibilities included overseeing security during Klan rallies that were held in the upstate area, complete with a burning cross for the whole world to see. Then there was my mom, Judy-O. She was a self-proclaimed atheist who dabbled in the occult, read from a satanic bible, and was a clinically diagnosed nymphomaniac with various drug addictions.

Don’t misunderstand, they each had lots of good qualities, too. But I get it. It’s hard to look past the unsavory stuff since these are less than stellar credentials when you’re measured against traditional societal standards here in the south, whether you want to be or not. Oh yeah, my parents were also swingers, which I discovered, accidentally, back in the mid-seventies via some of my dad’s Polaroid photos. He himself had taken those pics as mementos during one of their legendary parties. Being twelve and trying to unsee a picture of your mom, wearing only her birthday suit, in a sexually explicit pose with another guy, is no small feat. There were a lot of parties like that. It seems like all the men had mustaches and all the ladies wore halter tops. It was a crazy time, not a lot of guardrails at my house.

Suffice it to say that whenever I’m at a social gathering with friends and the subject of dysfunctional families comes up, which happens more often than you might think, I’ve walked away with the trophy, albeit reluctantly, most of the time.

This story is about how I finally figured out why my life was so discombobulated, even though it took almost five decades to do so.

© 2023 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (Prologue)

I now realize that memory was a harbinger that things were not as they seemed, at least not in my way of looking at life when I was only five. I think my mom took a stab at making our home seem whitewashed and normal, but it wasn’t her forte. It didn’t really matter what she did because there were already early warning signs that something about my place in our family didn’t add up.

My first hint there was a world other than the squeaky-clean version to which I’d been exposed so far was when I was eight and my Papa Ralph, my mom’s dad, would take me on jaunts downtown on Saturday mornings in our hometown of Greer, South Carolina. We would always go to Waters’ Record Shop, where he would purchase some vinyl 45s for his collection while I leafed through the comic books. One of those Saturdays after we left the record shop, he took me to a fascinating place where he knew he’d find some of his like-minded, rough-and-tumble, blue-collar friends. He also told me I needed to wait outside, although he didn’t explain why. I remember peeking through the front window of that lowbrow establishment on Randall Street, next to Bowers’ Gulf station. Inside were unkempt young men sitting on barstools as they raced slot cars, intently, on an incredibly large track balanced on plywood and sawhorses. They all looked disheveled as they smoked cigarettes and sipped on their coffees, as many of them illegally wagered on the outcomes of those races. When my Papa Ralph came out a bit later, he said I probably shouldn’t tell Judy-O we went to this place. I never let her know because I understood, instinctively, the inherent importance of not betraying my grandfather’s trust. Besides, I secretly hoped he’d take me back one day and let me go inside.

There were also occasions when we visited my paternal grandparents at their place on Von Ohsen Road in Summerville. Those trips to the South Carolina Lowcountry, which we took once each year during the warmer months, became our version of the family vacation. It wasn’t until the year I turned sixteen that we ever went to someplace swanky. During those annual trips to Summerville, as we were apt to do, we all piled into my grandma’s Buick and headed to Charleston, usually to go eat somewhere in Mount Pleasant on Shem’s Creek. We almost always took the slower route down Highway 61, or maybe Dorchester Road. We typically rode around sightseeing, with my loquacious grandfather providing whatever play-by-play was necessary to fill the time. On one such outing, we were over in West Ashley, headed east on the Savannah Highway. Before we got to the bridge that crossed the Ashley River, we happened to pass the road that travels south through James Island and ends at Folly Beach. My grandpa said, rather glibly, and I’ll never forget it, “And that’s the road that goes all the way to Folly Beach. You don’t want to go down there. That’s where bad things happen.” And that was it. He didn’t say what bad things exactly. All I knew was I really wanted to go to Folly Beach and find out what was up. I’m now delighted to say my own family of six has probably vacationed on Folly Beach more than any other getaway destination. They call it the Edge of America for good reason. As for those things that have happened there being bad or not, I reckon it depends a lot on your worldview. All I know is I keep going back to Folly Beach to this day.

Years later, when I started high school in ‘76, I had the same foreign sensation when a friend played Steppenwolf’s version of ‘The Pusher’ off their eponymous album that had dropped a half-decade earlier. I immediately realized I was experiencing something for the first time in my life, and I knew there was more music I needed to explore. That song was nothing like the songs my mom and dad played on the radio. It enabled me to realize there was a vast world of diverse music that still fascinates me to this day.

I’m pretty certain now that my collective experiences - from those dimly lit slot car havens, teeming with grubby young men with hand-rolled cigarettes dangling from their crusty lips, that I visited with my Papa Ralph on those long-ago Saturday mornings, to having Hoyt Axton’s lyrics to ‘The Pusher’ blow my naïve young mind - all provided me with the necessary conception of the world to pick out those lugubrious members of my home state that represented its seedy underbelly.

I’m also well aware that many members of my family, along with their acquaintances, were cut from the same cloth as those dregs of society that most people cast aside and with whom they’d prefer not to associate. I, apparently, was not of the same ilk, although I tried my best at times. This story, my memoir, most of which spans forty-eight years of my life, is about trying to figure out who I really am, how I got here, and what makes me so unlike the ne’er-do-wells who raised me.

© 2023 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (1: Cotton Dust & Dirt Tracks)

I happened to have been born a century after that blood-soaked battle, in August of 1962, at the defunct Allen Bennett Memorial Hospital on Wade Hampton Boulevard in Greenville County, which borders Spartanburg County to the east. My birth certificate states I was born in Chick Springs Township. But my hometown, where I spent the majority of my formative years, was a place called Greer. Many of my family members, mostly on my mom’s side, had roots in the surrounding area and worked in the very cotton-encrusted textile industry that had once been a tremendous economic boom to many of the small towns, like the one where I grew up, that dotted upstate South Carolina’s Piedmont region.

While most of my mom’s family members, at least the ones capable of holding onto a steady job, were perpetually coated in cotton dust from working in the spinning rooms and card rooms located in those textile mills, there were a few exceptions. For example, my mom’s maladjusted younger brother, Frankie, was a barber, part-time thief, and full-time asshole. I think he learned how to cut hair in prison, but he was probably an asshole from day one. He’s still around and retired from the barber profession. The last time I ran into him was at our local hardware store a few years ago, and he promised to stay in touch. Then he proceeded to give me his supposed cell phone number, which, of course, began with 666. So while my uncle no longer cuts hair, apparently, he’s still an asshole.

As for where I grew up, it’s an area located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains that is now referred to as a part of Appalachia. Back when I was a young fellow, wherever I happened to find myself, I couldn’t help but notice the skyline was always dotted with rusted-out rocket ship-shaped water towers that stood like sentries over those mill villages and other such neighborhoods. Today, that same landscape is dotted with an ever-growing sea of cell phone towers that loom over those newer suburban households. Their inhabitants were more than likely transients from Ohio or Pennsylvania who moved here for the lower cost of living and warmer climates. Maybe they liked the fact that they could play golf pretty much year-round, or buy a handgun with little to no fanfare and absolutely no paperwork.

Oh yeah, my maiden memory. My first ever recollection, which occurred in the spring of ‘66, was when we lived on Blueberry Lane in Summerville. As I’ve already mentioned, my dad worked at the Navy Yard on the Cooper River, which is how we came to be in Summerville in the first place. My dad also raced dirt track on Saturday nights as a hobby back then. He had a ‘40 Ford Coupe, his first car, that he kept for this singular purpose. That Ford eventually met its fate, years later, in a garage fire. Before that came to pass, I can still recall one chilly night from when I was not quite four years old. It’s a memory of my mom and me sitting atop some wooden bleachers watching really loud cars go around in circles over and over again. I mentioned this story to my dad a year or two after my mom passed away, and he immediately recalled a race he qualified for at the Columbia Speedway. I now know that ‘dirt track’ was a quarter-mile oval located in Cayce, a suburb of Columbia, the capital of my home state. It hosted local grudge races as well as some of NASCAR’s top series from the late ‘40s all the way through 1971. All I really remember about that evening is that I was wearing a corduroy jacket with a fake fur collar, and my mom had one of those huge beehive hairdos. To this day, I can still picture her silhouette against the orange backdrop that was created by the red clay dust that filtered the yellow stadium lights that surrounded the track that night. At the time, I didn’t have any knowledge of it being my dad and his hot-rodding buddies making all that racket. I also have no recollection of arriving and climbing those wooden bleachers, and I don’t remember walking out covered in a layer of the same red clay dust that’s the inevitable residue of spending a night at any of the dirt tracks in the south. I do recall that the cars were crazy loud to be so far away as they drove around in circles. However, what I remember more than anything was my mom, the erstwhile Judith Ophelia Shields, being intoxicated by it all.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (2: Handlebar Mustache)

As for my dad, the only thing about the two of us that bore any resemblance was our height. We were both an inch or two over six feet, depending upon whether we were in shoes or not. He and I’d been able to look each other eye-to-eye since I was about sixteen. Another thing we shared was being somewhat athletic, although we rarely participated in the same physical endeavor at the same time. This was because the few times we did, when I was almost as tall as my dad, I was better than he was. Even though my dominance was very likely due to being in better shape than my ol’ man was at that stage, I was still quicker and more adroit than him and I knew he knew it. But I do have, in my collection of mementos I picked up from my mom before she passed away, a newspaper clipping where my dad was the high scorer in a losing effort in a Textile League basketball game. Victor Mill, where he worked at the time, lost to Milliken 56 to 48 at the old armory gymnasium. Tommie Dean had sixteen to lead all scorers, which meant he tallied one-third of his team’s points.

Otherwise, besides our height, my dad and I looked nothing alike, and we didn’t really act alike either. He was big and burly with auburn hair, brown eyes, broad shoulders, and a pasty complexion. As a young man, he would have been what you called muscular and big-boned. Let me put it this way: when I was a kid, his nickname was “Bull.” I don’t think you get labeled with that one if you’re diminutive. On the other hand, I had a darker complexion compared to my dad’s easily sunburned, whiter-shade-of-pale. Up until my mid-twenties, when I decided to hit the weights, I was also very skinny. I had dirty-blonde hair and green eyes, almost delicate, angular features, and rosy cheeks. I was also brighter and more astute than my dad. It wasn’t so much that I was intellectually superior as it was that he wasn’t very book smart. He struggled in school, eventually dropping out during his senior year to join the army. Yet I easily made better-than-average grades without trying, at least up until my junior year in high school when I discovered girls and cobbled together an active social calendar.

Despite our apparent differences, I still wanted, more than anything, to please my dad. A part of me wanted to be like him, too, because that’s what most boys probably want when there’s a male role model in their midst during such formative years. I remember I was not quite seven when we first moved to our new home in Greer during the summer of ‘69. Instead of Lyman Elementary, where I completed first grade, I’d soon be attending Apalache Elementary. That school was located near the housing village that was associated with Apalache Mill, which happened to sit on the shores of the South Tyger River in my hometown.

Back then, my dad and I would go for haircuts every weekend because where we were from, that’s what you did. While it lasted, the Saturday morning ritual consisted of my dad walking out to warm up his red ‘65 Impala Super Sport. After getting the motor purring just right, he’d usually walk back in the house and light a cigarette. When he thought the Impala was ready to roll, he would say, “Phillip, get in the car,” which I always did as quickly as I could. If the weather happened to be pleasant, my dad would’ve also rolled all four windows down. Without fail, he’d find me sitting in the passenger seat by the time he hopped in. This car, which my dad later said he disliked for reasons he never explained, was what they referred to as triple-red. In other words, if it wasn’t chrome-plated, it was red - the paint, the seats, the entire interior, for that matter, including the carpet. Most days that Impala sat in our driveway, which was a concrete carport that connected to the tar & gravel dead-end road on which we lived. We were the last house on the right before our street ended in a section of pine forest that stretched all the way to the Greer Dragway, near Apalache Mill.

By the time my dad cranked the Impala so we could head to the barber shop, he would’ve finished his cigarette and thumped its butt in the yard. Before backing the Impala onto our tar-and-gravel road, he’d always light another cigarette with his silver Zippo. I always watched him do this. Something about my dad’s stoic mannerisms in those moments made me realize what it was about him that mesmerized my mom so much.

The last thing my dad would do before he ratcheted the automatic shifter into drive on the red & chrome center console that separated our red & chrome bucket seats was reach down towards the factory Delco stereo. There was always an 8-track cassette loaded, probably the Coasters, and he’d give it a slight nudge to engage the tape head. Odds are, Yackety Yak was going to queue up. Then, as I watched him, he would slide his left arm out the window and let it drape over the outside of the door, his cigarette dangling from his lips. As Tommie Dean slowly pressed the gas pedal to guide us east on Wade Hampton Boulevard, I’d reach up and hang my right arm as far out my open window as I could, just like him. During that summer, we never spoke during those weekly round-trip drives to the barber shop. There were other barbers in Greer, but our barber was the only guy my dad trusted with his thick, wavy pompadour. This is why we made the fifteen-minute drive to Lyman every week, to get our hair cut there. My dad always went first while I read comic books from a stack on a table and waited for my turn. When my ol’ man was finished and brushed off, the barber would get out the booster for his chair, and I would eagerly climb into position as he snapped a fresh apron to drape around my neck. I was always told that if I could sit still while I got my trim, I’d get a candy bar of my choice. I usually picked an Almond Joy, which puzzled my dad for some reason.

Then, one Saturday morning about two months into this weekend ritual, the barber, an older, white-haired guy with a matching handlebar mustache, mentioned to my dad that I must look a lot like my mom because I sure as hell didn’t look anything like him. Tommie Dean didn’t say a word, but all I know is I never got asked to go on those Saturday morning trips to the barber shop ever again.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (3: Davenport)

After sunset on that cold, crisp mid-winter day, my mom served up some salmon croquettes, mashed potatoes, lima beans, and cornbread for our supper. I remembered that, because back then, it was my least favorite meal my mom would prepare. No amount of ketchup could make those cast-iron skillet-fried salmon patties tasty enough that I wouldn’t rather go hungry. As far as my culinary dislikes went, it was right up there with oyster stew, which I never liked much either. After supper, my two brothers, who were too young to be fans of the boob tube, would always run off to play in their rooms. But I, as was our ritual in those days, remained in our den with my parents to watch their favorite television shows. Back then, it was always the same pattern: The Newlywed Game, Let’s Make A Deal, Adam-12, then my two favorites, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. After that, I was sent off to bed, and my parents watched a detective show that came on at 10 PM. However, on this night, after Uncle Joe and Sam Drucker had concluded their corny escapades at the Shady Rest Hotel in Hooterville, my dad pulled my mom aside for a private conversation. I could tell from their discussion that she was concerned about whatever it was Tommie Dean was whispering to her in our kitchen. I could also tell he was about to get his way, which was always the case. My dad turned to grab his coat, and I glanced at Judy-O. She wore an expression that made me wonder where he was headed at such a late hour. I watched my dad walk out the front door as he buttoned up his jacket to brace for the wintry night air. As I listened to his Impala disappear in the distance, I made my way to bed and had long since gone to sleep by the time he made it home.

The following morning, I was one of the first to wake up, which was usually the case. My parents almost always slept in on Sundays, since we weren’t churchgoers like most of our neighbors. But my dad was already up, ferrying items from his car to our basement, where he stored them away. As soon as I got dressed, I overheard my dad having another chat with my mom in the kitchen, and it was almost as contentious as their discussion the night before.

My ‘ol man turned to grab his coat, and I noticed he also grabbed mine from the rack by the front door. He put on his winter jacket, and then he handed me mine. While I immediately stood up and began putting on my overcoat, I also glanced at my mom, just like the evening before. As Judy-O nervously lit another cigarette, I noticed she still had a concerned look that made me curious about where we were headed. I paused for only a second, unsure, but instinctively followed my dad out the front door. The sun hadn’t been up long, so it was still bitterly cold outside.

Tommie Dean didn’t say a word as he slipped into the bucket seat of his Impala. I joined him as quickly as I could. It was obvious by his pace that he was in a hurry to get wherever it was we were going. After lighting another cigarette, he started the Impala’s motor and proceeded to back out of our carport and head off to wherever it was that was so important. I detected an aroma I couldn’t pinpoint. It was a chemical fragrance that reminded me of gasoline, but it wasn’t gas. Reminiscent of a garage - it was oily and had a pleasant scent, akin to pine rosin. In a matter of seconds, the odor was masked by the smell of my dad’s cigarette smoke.

The only other thing that seemed unusual about this excursion was that whenever I typically found myself riding along with my dad, he always played music over the Impala’s stereo. Sometimes it was a local AM station, and other times it was an 8-track cassette. On this trip, it was eerily quiet since he decided not to play any music. He seemed to have something on his mind, which caused me to ponder what my mom was so concerned about as we left the house earlier that morning.

It only took a moment to realize we weren’t going to one of the usual places I might be allowed to tag along. As we headed south on Main Street past Greer High School, where I would attend ninth grade in a half-dozen years, my dad turned the Impala right onto Arlington Avenue. This was when I knew we were headed somewhere different. Had we turned left onto Arlington, we would’ve been going towards my cousin’s house. Instead, we were headed towards downtown, where the nicer, more stately older homes stood along the square city blocks with their massive oak trees and concrete sidewalks. We drove through a part of my hometown I never got to see very often because we didn’t know or associate with folks who lived in such fine houses. That neighborhood, to me, was where rich people must live in their two-story monstrosities with porches that seemed big enough to play a game of hide-and-seek.

After my dad drove for a couple of blocks, he slowly took a left onto North Avenue and pulled up next to a big metal mailbox. The bizarre coincidence about where he stopped was that I would one day purchase my first home on that very corner in downtown Greer. The old Cunningham House, which I acquired in ‘87, was a cavernous two-story home built in the 1920s. Currently, that old house faces the part of Davenport field where the backside of a stately old school once stood. The morning my dad pulled up to the curb and stopped, that same field was occupied by the smoldering remains of Davenport Junior High School, where sixth, seventh, and eighth-grade children went to school in Greer back then.

The Davenport school was built in 1922 when D.D. Davenport, a local philanthropist, donated most of the money needed to fund the construction. It served as the town’s high school until 1953, when a newer Greer Senior High was built on North Main Street. That’s when Davenport became the town’s Junior High School. But on that wickedly cold morning, all that was left of the school was what remained of its crumbling brick walls as firefighters continued to douse the last few embers. Those same firefighters would later determine the flames had been intentionally set some time before midnight and ravaged the school overnight. Davenport would’ve been where I was supposed to attend classes in a couple of years, but that all changed with the strike of a match.

As my dad and I sat in his car, I noticed he was watching the school intently while more cigarette smoke filled the cabin. I could see other men and women frantically attempting to salvage whatever items that had not been consumed by the overnight inferno. My dad, however, didn’t bother to lift a finger. As Tommie Dean and I huddled in the quiet of the early morning, I was curious about what we were doing, but I also knew better than to ask my dad anything. I was taught at an early age that kids only spoke when they were spoken to. On top of that, my dad was often dark & brooding and was happiest in the company of his closest friends. Most of the time, even my mom didn’t seem to make him smile. Being only seven years old, I was so young I figured that was the way all dads behaved all the time.

Finally, after a few minutes, I heard my dad pull the chrome handle to his door, presumably to help the others. Before he got out, he looked back at me and said to stay put. I watched as he walked a few steps and leaned on the Impala’s fender while I sat there rubbing my hands together in an attempt to stay warm. He seemed to be studying what remained of the school as men and women scurried about trying to rescue whatever they could. I watched my ol’ man smoke a fresh cigarette as the gravity of the situation sank into my prepubescent brain. I began to realize how dire the moment was and became dumbfounded that my dad made absolutely no effort to help in any way.

Then, as quickly as we drove there, he clambered back in his car, fired up the engine, and hurriedly backed up onto Arlington, and we headed home. Not a word was spoken, but he no longer seemed anxious, and he didn’t drive like he was in a hurry. As we drove along Main Street, I glanced at my dad and noticed he had a droll expression, which made me contemplate what he might have been thinking. It also caused me to wonder what he’d been so interested in as he stood in the freezing cold on the corner of Arlington and North Avenue that morning. I thought about everything and reflected on Tommie Dean’s intentions the evening before when he left our house under the cover of darkness.

Today, all that remains of Davenport Junior High School is a large commemorative plaque on the sidewalk that originally led to the front door of the stately old school. Firefighters determined that arson was the cause of the blaze, and children never attended classes there ever again. A new school was built in another part of town, and classes began there in 1971, a year and a half after Davenport burned to the ground.

Seven days after the Davenport fire and its ensuing aftermath, the United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit handed down its ruling - following a seven-year-long court battle - that effectively and definitively abolished Greenville County Schools’ loosely-regulated and well-documented support of the state’s ‘separate but equal’ doctrine. This began the arduous process of officially integrating the area schools and their like-minded local affiliates who still supported racial segregation. While many in the upstate were in favor of integration, there were still plenty of dyed-in-the-wool southerners who were adamantly opposed to anything that would include their black neighbors. I overheard Judy-O saying this was why they closed one of our favorite swimming spots, Chicks Springs in Taylors, where we frolicked during the hot summer months. On the heels of that Court of Appeals ruling, the owners of that pond decided to shut their doors, and it’s still closed to this day. The ruling also paved the way for racial desegregation based on the established ‘freedom of choice’ plan, where black parents could apply to have their children enrolled at any public school in the county. Prior to that point in history, there were only a handful of schools in Greenville County that already had some black children enrolled. Like many ‘separate but equal’ school systems in the South, Greenville County covertly skirted modern integration laws by transferring select black students to even more select all-white public schools under the guise that it was doing what was best for the people. Davenport had been one of those schools, even though a lot of white parents weren’t too happy about it. I now strongly suspect my dad felt the same way back then, although I only witnessed him express this through his actions, not his words. To be fair, he never spoke to me other than to provide me with some directive, and I can only think of one time in my entire life when he gave me some fatherly advice, which consisted of a meager seven words.

As for the Davenport school, to this day, the individuals responsible for setting that fire have never been discovered, and the case has long since grown cold. I once asked my dad, when he was in his early eighties, if he remembered us going out to the corner of Arlington and North Avenue that miserably cold winter morning after the stately old school’s hallowed halls were set ablaze. He was startled by my inquiry and fixed his eyes on me. As he puzzled over my question, I stared back at my dad as we both waited for the other to blink. But his reaction had already told me what I’d long since suspected. Finally, he said he remembered. While Tommie Dean refused to elaborate, after a lengthy pause, he asked me if I remembered it. I told him, with a fair degree of confidence, that I remembered everything about that time of my life. He considered that for a moment longer as he continued to glare at me. I held my gaze, and he finally dropped his head and looked away.

That was the last time my dad and I ever spoke about Davenport Junior High.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (4: Double Overtime)

Another noteworthy player on that squad, and arguably the most influential on that historic day, was sophomore Ed Leftwich, who happened to be the first person of color recruited to their team and the first to be given a basketball scholarship at NC State as a freshman. Coach Sloane entrusted Leftwich to start for the Wolfpack that season, and he ended up being named second-team all-ACC. With only 23 seconds left in the second overtime and his team trailing by a point, Leftwich deftly stole the ball and raced down court to score a contested layup, which gave the Wolfpack their final lead. At the time, Leftwich was the only non-white player on the floor. He also effectively won the game for NC State. Seconds after that, Anheuser scored his two shots from the charity stripe to seal the deal, which gave Coach Sloan his first of three ACC tournament titles.

The 1969-70 Gamecocks - who began the season ranked 1st in the nation and finished 6th in both AP and Coaches polls - represented the University of South Carolina during the men’s college basketball season that year. USC won its first ACC regular-season championship after going a perfect 14-0 in conference play. Although they won their conference’s regular season, they were denied a spot in the NCAA Tournament after they lost that controversial championship game to NC State. Back then, only the tourney champs got invited to the big dance.

USC junior John Roche, who played on a sprained ankle for the entire title game against NC State, won ACC player of the year. Also on that squad was South Carolina senior captain and point guard Bobby Cremins. He and Roche were part of the pipeline of Irish-Catholic schoolboys recruited by McGuire from New York City. Cremins went on to be an assistant coach at South Carolina under McGuire and then head coach at Appalachian State, Georgia Tech, and College of Charleston before retiring from basketball. He won two ACC championships as a coach before he packed his bags. Cremins was also the player who lost the ball to Ed Leftwich on that fateful turnover late in that championship match.

What made that ACC tournament finals matchup such a big deal was not because I was a basketball fan. I liked basketball and most other sports for that matter, but being only seven, I was just beginning to figure things out. What I thought I’d discovered that day was that my dad was not only a basketball fan, but he also pulled for the Gamecocks.

Growing up in a state that had no major professional sports markets meant the local college teams were revered the way the professional teams were regarded in places like Atlanta or Baltimore. Since Hotlanta was several hours to the west, which seemed like a world away back then, everybody in South Carolina adopted either the Gamecocks or the Clemson Tigers as their team of choice, and it’s pretty much still that way today. I knew that friends of mine in the neighborhood and at school would occasionally wear a t-shirt emblazoned with the mascot of one of those two college teams - probably because one or both of their parents attended school there.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to travel and spend time in most of the states in not just the southeast but many of the midwestern states, as well. Every time I visit these other areas, there’s the inevitable discussion about college rivalries, especially during football season - Alabama & Auburn, Georgia & Tennessee, and Ohio State & Michigan immediately come to mind. My family moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, back in the mid-nineties, and folks there, mostly UVA grads, talked about their spirited feuds with Virginia Tech fans, most of whom lived over in the Shenandoah Valley. I was even invited to a football game between the two schools when the Hokies visited one fall. The way everyone talked leading up to the game made me think it must be an extremely heated rivalry. I expected fights to break out in the parking lot where everyone was pre-gaming over fried chicken and cold beer. Nope. It was one of the most mundane college rivalries I’d ever witnessed. When I explained to those Virginians what the Carolina-Clemson rivalry was like, they were befuddled. When I told them I knew of family members who were literally estranged over their differences in regard to which South Carolina college was “the best,” they seemed to think I was exaggerating. I wasn’t, though - I know of grown-ass men who wouldn’t go to their own kids’ college graduation ceremonies due to their progeny breaking ranks and attending a rival university here in my home state.

As for the day NC State was playing the Gamecocks for the ACC hoops tourney championship, I remember my dad more than I remember the game. We were supposed to be somewhere else that afternoon and had gotten gussied up for the occasion. My mom and two younger brothers were already sitting in our dad’s ruby-red Impala, but Tommie Dean wasn’t in the car, much to my mom’s displeasure. Instead of driving us all to whatever family function we ended up at later that afternoon, my dad was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, right in front of our tiny black & white television.

I’d never seen him so rapt with attention before, ever.

I became mesmerized as I watched him fixate on the action, and it was obvious he was rooting for the Gamecocks. I might’ve been wet behind the ears, but I could figure out that much. To this day, I still pull for the garnet & black because I grew up in a time and place where you were supposed to like what your daddy liked. So, that Sunday afternoon championship game during the winter of ‘70 is the reason why I still find myself rooting for the Gamecocks, and I have no explanation for it other than that.

As my dad lost himself in the competition, he would go from calmly sitting there studying that vacuum ray tube to jumping up and punching the air as he exalted over something I didn’t fully understand. This happened so many times that I had a hard time keeping up with what was going on. I just knew the Gamecocks were going toe-to-toe with a team from North Carolina, and my dad was the most animated I’d ever seen him in my life. In fact, as I write this, I can honestly say I never saw him more excited than I recall him being that Sunday afternoon, and it’s not even close. He even forgot about his cigarette, which had burned itself out as it rested in the ashtray on our coffee table.

The problem with being so caught up in the moment was that he forgot we were supposed to be somewhere else by the time the game was in its second and final overtime. Judy-O was not happy. When Ed Leftwich stole the ball from Cremins, my mom had already lain on the horn more than once. With each toot, my dad would reflexively stand up without ever taking his gaze away from the game and slowly lean in the direction of the screen door to the front of our house. Before he could manage to head that way, the game’s gravity would draw him back in.

When the action finally ended and the Gamecocks had lost, Tommie Dean stood there looking stubbornly at the dusty black & white television with the crumpled tin foil on its replacement set of rabbit ear antennas. After reaching down to turn off the set, he calmly relit his half-smoked cigarette. I made sure to give him a wide berth as he strode past me. On his way out the door, I overheard my dad utter a word I’d only heard a few times before. The context of that word had never resonated with me, but this time it did. It was the first time I’d ever heard the n-word used to describe one specific type of person, and I immediately realized my dad didn’t think much of Ed Leftwich.

I climbed into the back seat behind my mom as my dad flicked the cigarette butt onto our yard and slid into his customary spot behind the wheel. We took off down the road, and my mom made a flippant comment about not realizing how much my dad liked to watch basketball. I think she was trying really hard not to act annoyed since we were finally on the way to some family function that obviously meant more to her than it did to her husband. I was kind of surprised she’d blown the horn the way she did. I had never seen her be that demonstrative before, especially with my ol’ man. Good thing for her that he’d been so engrossed in the game.

My dad, who was sitting there quietly as he navigated us out of the neighborhood, finally said he liked basketball and enjoyed pulling for South Carolina.

These days, as I reflect on that memory, I’m not so sure about my dad’s claim to prefer pulling for a specific team from his home state. I realize now - as I remember watching Tommie Dean immerse himself in that championship matchup - he seemed much more interested in a specific individual losing than the Gamecocks winning.

To me, that’s as black and white as the screen on that ol’ television.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (5: Cub Scouts)

During the early 70s, the civil rights movement was running full tilt, which is to say cultural awareness was heightened regarding the elimination of legalized racial segregation. Yet other aspects of institutionalized bigotry seemed as if they might be on the verge of imploding, especially the farther south you went. In Greenville, the civil rights movement was making national headlines for its stance on systemic racism. Half a decade before Dr. Martin Luther King was gunned down outside of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis and a couple of years before those deadly marches in Selma, Alabama so people of color could exercise their constitutional rights to vote, there were six black children from Greenville County - all between the ages of 10 to 18 - that became the first students to challenge the racial segregation policy of our county’s school system. They became the centerpiece for a successful lawsuit, based on the new Freedom of Choice model, that challenged Greenville County’s preference for the antiquated ‘separate but equal’ policy that opposed full-scale racial integration. By virtue of an order handed down by the United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit on February 7, 1970, the school board policy in Greenville was about to be turned on its head. Following the Court of Appeals ruling, any and all black school-aged individuals in Greenville County were able to join alongside their white classmates legally and freely in a public-school setting, without fear of legal repercussions. This is also why, between 1966 and 1970, five brand-new private schools opened in Greenville County, but only for white students.

I remember the day when we suddenly had a half-dozen new students in our second-grade classes. To our teachers’ credit, those kids were furtively shown their new seats in the two classrooms that made up Apalache Elementary School’s second grade that year. We all played together at recess, ate amongst one another at lunch, and managed to get along just fine. One of my new female classmates, Belinda, went on to have classes with me all the way through high school. She was very intelligent, in addition to being charming, beautiful, and funny. It’s no wonder she was so extremely well-liked by our classmates. I distinctly remember having insightful conversations with Belinda all the way back to elementary school. She and I still engage in the occasional messaging back and forth about our lives, and our friendship is very special to me.

There was another girl who started second grade along with Belinda and was a classmate of ours until we all graduated high school together. She went on to become Miss ‘Le Flambeau’ of 1980, which gave her the unique distinction of being the first young black woman to obtain our school’s beauty queen title. It was very well deserved since she represented our student body with an abundance of dignity and grace.

While we elementary school kids were getting along really well, the adults back then, not so much. It didn’t take long for some subtle things to begin taking place that undermined the efforts of those who truly wanted to bring us all together for the common good. For example, some of the white teachers began letting our darker-skinned classmates go outside for an extra recess, and I thought they were lucky to get to go play. The reality of it was that we white kids were inside getting an education while our black classmates were being ignored. Belinda confided to me years later that she thought our teacher was being nice when she was quite the opposite. But that’s what it was like then - adults, such as some of our teachers, who would willingly subvert the authority of the country’s legal system just to serve their own racist social agenda. Those types of individuals surrounded themselves with others who supported their beliefs, which wasn’t hard to do in those days, thanks to the long-lasting effects that King Cotton had on them and their family members before them.

Not only was Greenville the last major school district in South Carolina to begrudgingly integrate their schools, but they were also one of the last in the entire United States to do so. Seriously, pause and let that sink in for a moment. Reread it if you must. Because that should help add some incredibly powerful insight as to how many of the white folks in the area were constipated over the state of affairs during that time in history. While there was a sizable number who took the high road, there were plenty who felt the primary essence of life in not just Greenville, but the entire South, was being threatened.

February 17, 2020, last year as of this writing, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the official integration of Greenville County’s public school system. Greenville’s desegregation, achieved through a mid-year reassignment of more than 12,000 students and 550 teachers, happened quickly and seamlessly. I was really glad to have some new friends like Belinda. My dad, I found out, wasn’t too happy about it, and he and his friends of the same ilk were discreetly discussing the need for coercion to keep things the way they’d always been.

To give you an idea of what it was like at my house regarding xenophobia, here’s a good example from ‘71 when I was nine years old. During the start of my fourth-grade year at Crestview, and six months after integration began in Greenville County, I asked my mom about starting a Cub Scout den. Many of the boys in my new neighborhood were already in Cub Scout dens running at capacity. Since I wanted to be in one as well, it made sense to start a new den. I checked with my mom, and she eagerly agreed to be a den mother. I went back to school and mentioned this idea to some of my classmates who weren’t Cub Scouts. A few of them got back and said they wanted to do it too. I told my mom, and she applied and obtained what she needed. We then picked an upcoming Saturday to host the first get-together at our house. My mom and I were both excited as they began showing up. What I’d neglected to tell my parents was that two of the boys coming over weren’t white. Well, long story short, when my dad found out, he immediately put the kibosh on our good times, and that was our last Cub Scout meeting. End of discussion. He didn’t even tell me the reason, and I knew better than to ask. I sometimes quip that I was in the Cub Scouts for three whole days, but I never explain why.

Even though it’d been a hundred years since the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan Trials of 1871-72 that resulted in the arrest of dozens of white men in Spartanburg, the white supremacist organization known as the KKK was still very active where we lived. By my eleventh birthday, my dad was already dragging me off to Klan rallies in the more rural parts of Spartanburg County. At first, I’d go for the actual rally, which always began at dusk and ran into the early evening. Then later, as we began going to more Klan rallies, I was going earlier to help my dad set up whatever needed to be done. I honestly didn’t even know what the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan really were or what they stood for. What made me want to be there - other than getting to hang with my dad - were all the other kids close to my age, which meant I had built-in friends to mess around with. Remember, I was only ten to twelve years old when this was going down. Sure, there was some guy in a hooded costume up on a podium, mic in hand, putting on a histrionics clinic, but it was all foreign to me. I didn’t understand it, and no one seemed interested in explaining any of it. I also sensed the others there who were close to my age were as clueless as I was. We were kids trying to be kids. There just happened to be a huge, burning cross in the backdrop after the sun had set on those days.

My dad’s fascination with the Klan was rapidly growing in interest around our home as time went on. Not only was he starting to take me to some of the actual Klan meetings, but some of the other members were starting to hang out at our house. Since my mom had a Singer electric sewing machine, she made Klan robes for those folks. There were lots of long, white hooded cloaks with the standard patches adorning the chest and sleeves, all of which were for sale at Klan rallies. The sole exception to the white robes was the one for my dad. Since he’d paid his dues and worked his way up the Klan’s totem pole, he was an officer in the Greer chapter of the KKK, which they called their den. By listening in on those occasions, I figured out his official rank was Nighthawk and his role was to be a courier for important events as well as overseeing security at Klan rallies and other such activities. Since that often meant being hidden along the perimeter like a sentry, he wore a black robe. It was knee-length as opposed to the more traditional ankle-length robes that came in white. The shorter length made it easier to chase anyone down in the event they tried to infiltrate the rallies. At one rally, I was walking around before it got too dark, and I spotted him sitting on an enduro-type dirt bike along the tree line. His hood was pushed back, which made him easily recognizable because of his thick Fu Manchu mustache and long sideburns. I walked over, and he showed me the loaded sawed-off shotgun he was toting. He also flashed the silver, pearl-handled 38 special revolver he carried as a backup. All of a sudden, those Klan rallies seemed a lot more real.

Fast-forward a couple of years to 1974, and I’m finishing up my sixth-grade year of middle school. Bell-bottom jeans were standard fare during that time in history, and my ol’ man was still a hard-core Klansman. To waste away the long summer months when there wasn’t much to do, I hung out with my next-door neighbor, Roxanne. While I had plenty of other neighborhood friends I did things with, Roxanne really was my best friend at that time of my life. During the day, she and I would sneak into her brother’s room and listen to his rock & roll albums. At night, we would go sit outside and burn the incense I’d absconded from my mom’s stash while she wasn’t looking. In hindsight, I now realize that good friends like Belinda and Roxanne were my salvation, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. By including me, they were providing the refuge I needed to balance the depravity that was taking shape in my parents’ world. I now realize that the summer of ‘74, when I turned twelve, was without question the craziest, most deranged time of my entire life, not even close.

As I begin to better explain the sordid details of those stories and their series of events, you’re probably going to feel concerned, and maybe even troubled. I get it. On those occasions during the last few years when it has become relevant for me to share those parts of my life with others, their reactions have varied greatly. Quite often, my more learned friends ask something like “Have you seen a therapist?” I have not, nor do I feel a need to, at least not yet. I’ve had a lot of time to chew on this, to rationalize it and ascertain why it all happened the way it happened and with whom it happened. As crazy as it might sound, my world makes more sense to me now. It has helped a lot that I’ve decided to view the cosmos as one big forest and not focus so much on the trees.

Too many people spend too much time in those damned trees.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (6: Earl & BeBop Deluxe)

As far as book smarts go, like our dad, neither of my two younger siblings had all that much. They weren’t dolts, but since my parents never cared too much about our schoolwork, my brothers were content to make average grades in classes designed for average students. Darryl was born during the summer of ‘65, three years after me. I honestly think he possessed an uncanny ability to adeptly read people. He was also good at thinking on his feet, but he never seemed to want to apply himself to anything honorable. My youngest brother was born a year and a half later, and my parents decided to call him Ken. These days, a handful of my closest friends call me J.P., but most people call me Phil. I never got stuck with any type of real nickname as a kid, at least none that I knew of. My brothers, on the other hand, were known as Earl and Bebop.

Darryl was called Earl because his given name was colloquialized into his nickname solely because it kind of rhymed. Go ahead, try it. Darryl, Earl, Darryl, Earl, Durle, Earl. See what I mean. Everybody who knows him these days calls him Earl. But whenever I run into my unruly brother, I still call him Darryl, which suits him fine.

Of my two brothers, Darryl’s the character. He’s quick-witted and clever, while Ken is neither. Earl always had something amusing to say, and most people found him entertaining. However, his intrepid nature was also his undoing. He got expelled from high school during his senior year for fighting, probably over a girl who wasn’t worth it. He had the misfortune of starting a dust-up with a classmate who was one of a set of identical twins. Darryl was holding his own until the other twin showed up. Then they beat him so badly that he was unrecognizable. To make matters worse, the twins didn’t get into any trouble since Darryl instigated the whole thing. My brother admitted later that he started it and they finished it, end of story. That life lesson was soon followed by decades of miscreant conduct that landed him in jail a few times. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s not currently incarcerated somewhere, but I’m really not sure. All I know is that if he wasn’t locked up, then he was most likely living off the grid and working under the table. If he ever got hold of some brown liquor, it really didn’t matter what kind, it was another excuse to throw a party. Those were the types of hootenannies where something always went wrong and someone usually got hurt, but nobody ever tried to stop it.

These days, on the rare occasion when Darryl and I get to catch up, he likes to say he is who he is because it’s in his blood, that it’s genetic. I used to wonder about that, but not so much anymore. Say what you want to about my wayward brother, but he was crazy like a fox and too shrewd to second-guess his self-induced set of circumstances. Nonetheless, it was his rebellious nature that kept him on the run. I was always mischievous and dabbled in non-conformity, but not like my brother. For whatever reason, I chose to tread more lightly than he did. While I tended to weigh the pros and cons before taking any leap of faith, especially where breaking the law was concerned, he eagerly threw caution to the wind. As a result, he got in a lot more trouble than I did, by a long shot. He also got injured a lot more often. Back in the eighties, he once tied one on and totaled Tommie Dean’s pristine Ford Pickup. Our ol’ man never got over that one and used to get pissed off all over again whenever something reminded him of that Ford.

One of the truly crappy house rules we had growing up was that I couldn’t physically harm my brothers in any way, solely because I was older and therefore bigger & stronger. The problem was that Darryl quickly learned that gave him carte blanche to pester me at will, knowing I couldn’t fight back for fear of getting in trouble with our dad. It was truly dreadful while I was in high school. The sad reality of it was that it made me resent my younger brother when I was a teenager. I really believe that if my dad had let us figure everything out on our own, Darryl and I would’ve been closer. Due to the animosity that developed, one day, when I was a senior and he was a freshman, I lost my composure. We were in our den, and I was trying to ignore him. This routine had become a ritual by that time in our lives. We were always at home with our mom in the afternoons and evenings because our dad was working his second shift maintenance job at the tire plant in Spartanburg. During this period of our lives, whenever Darryl got bored, he would harass me solely to amuse himself. The problem was that if I ever retaliated towards him in any way, out of sight of our parents, he’d go straight up spider monkey, and then it became a full-on fight. Those were win-the-battle-but-lose-the-war scenarios for me, so I tried to avoid them. One evening, as I was sitting on the couch in our den, minding my own business, my brother started needling me about something. I decided to ignore him and go to my room, which is when he decided to thump me in the back of the head as I walked away. What happened next was somewhat of a blur as my mom watched from the kitchen doorway. I remember I picked Darryl up and tossed him over the coffee table onto the floor, which knocked the breath out of him. Standing over him as he was gasping for air, I scowled, daring him to retaliate. When I was done with my brother, he never bothered me again. Another hard-learned lesson for ol’ Earl.

Ken’s nickname has its own unique story. It was the summer of ‘72, and the start of school was a couple of weeks away. At the time, we were living in our new house on the Spartanburg County side of Greer, which we’d moved to in ‘69 after we left the mill village in Lyman. I had attended Lyman Elementary in first grade, and for second grade, I went to Apalache Elementary during its last year of existence. The year after that, I began third grade at the brand-new Crestview Elementary School, which sat right on the county line and was only a few miles from our new home. In ‘72, I would’ve been going into fifth grade, and Ken would be starting kindergarten. One Saturday in mid-August of that year, Ken got hold of some scissors and decided it was time for a trim. By the time anyone realized what was going on, Ken was sporting something mullet-like that was pretty much unsalvageable. So my dad loaded Ken into his Impala and they went to see an old barber with a handlebar mustache.

When they got back later that morning, Ken had a buzz cut. It contrasted grotesquely against his pasty white scalp on display through the remaining stubble of some reddish-brown hair. I overheard my dad telling Judy-O that the barber said there wasn’t much he could do because it was almost to his scalp, right above Ken’s forehead. Tommie Dean said the barber called the haircut a Bebop Deluxe. By the time I retold the story to my buddies in the neighborhood, it was unanimous that we’d start calling my youngest brother Bebop. Guess what, it stuck. But just like I don’t call Darryl by his preferred moniker, I still call my youngest brother Ken anytime we cross paths, which isn’t very often.

To this day, if I meet someone from around these parts and ask them if they know my youngest brother, I have to refer to him by his nickname, or they have no clue who I’m talking about. Oh yeah, he walks wherever he goes and has no car. His job, which consists of cleaning filthy cargo containers that return from the inland port in Charleston, is a ninety-minute walk from his trailer in Lyman, rain or shine. Ken used to drive, but back in the early aughts, something ominous and unspeakable happened involving a late model automobile owned by my youngest brother. My understanding is that Darryl used it for something illicit that Ken never could or would explain. Because of whatever it was that went down, my youngest brother has never driven a car again, nor does he seem to want to. This also leads most people to speculate about his mental well-being. That’s all exacerbated by the fact that anyone who gets downwind would seriously question his hygiene.

It doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but from time to time, I still run into folks who are from somewhere near my hometown. Sometimes they also recognize my last name, and they’re reminded of Earl or Bebop, whom they know. When this occurs, these individuals usually try to tell me some crazy story about one of my brothers, not realizing we’re related. My two siblings are guys who leave lasting impressions wherever they go, but for entirely different reasons, none of which were good. When I inevitably blurted out that they’re talking about my younger brother, those individuals would look at me and say we were obviously talking about different guys with the same names. Then I’d listen patiently as they went into detail about something uncouth one of my brothers had done, still believing there was no way I was anything like either one of those rapscallions. At some point, as if on cruise control, I’d jump in and finish the story as proof that they really were my brothers. Those people were always stunned to realize the guy standing before them was somehow related, genetically, to those derelicts.

While others openly wondered how my brothers and I were so incredibly disparate, I never fretted over it. I’m not trying to disparage those who’ve struggled with family dysfunction, but I’ve always possessed the ability to rationalize what seemed to be happening in the world around me and still sleep pretty well at night. Nevertheless, I’ve also come to realize that writing this memoir has been extremely therapeutic in ways I could never have imagined before I began. I don’t feel as if I’ve repressed anything noteworthy, but that hasn’t made some of these memories all that easy to write about, and certain parts have made me inordinately sad, especially where my mom is concerned. I can’t help but ponder over that, and I probably will until the day I leave this place for the next realm. Wherever that is, I really hope my mom is there too. I have a long list of questions she could help me with.

One of the things my mom told me a few weeks before she died was about an obscure insurance policy on which she was the apparent beneficiary. But she was so duplicitous that I didn’t really take her seriously about the policy, figuring it was another one of her yarns. Then, a couple of years after she passed away, I got a call from an insurance company, and they wanted to speak to me about paying out on a life insurance policy on which my mom was indeed the beneficiary. The amount was thirty thousand dollars, and they explained that state law required the assets to go to the next of kin, which were my brothers and me.

What transpired next were countless visits to Spartanburg’s County Probate Court, a couple of trips to Columbia to visit the Department of Vital Records, and mounds of documentation. If I’d known how much of my time it was going to take, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. It became so much trouble and took so much effort that it really wasn’t worth my share, and I mean that. What ultimately kept me going back was the belief that a check for ten thousand dollars, since the $30K policy was to be evenly split three ways, would be greatly appreciated by my brothers. I made a point to track them both down, never an easy feat, to let them know about the pending payout. Neither seemed surprised and said our mom had also told them about the same policy. Darryl even said there were more policies like that one, according to our mother. Since he lied about as much as she did, I really hoped he was wrong. I explained that I regretted even getting involved because it’d been a royal pain-in-the-ass so far, and I still had more work to do before getting back in touch with either of them.

Several months later, I was notified that I’d finally provided the requisite documentation and they’d be cutting three checks to be mailed to me. I would hand-deliver Darryl and Ken’s checks. Each one was just shy of ten thousand dollars.

I took Darryl his check first since I knew where he was living at the time. His home was an old trailer way up in the northern part of Spartanburg County, near Campobello. He was thankful but said he needed his in cash. Something about not having the ability to deposit any checks, or they’d be garnished by the government. Honestly, at that point, because of the time and effort I’d put in while he’d done nothing, I didn’t really care. I told him that it was the check or nothing, so he took it and stuffed it in his pocket. To this day, I don’t know if he ever cashed it, but that’s not my problem.

Ken was a bit harder to find. I didn’t know which place was his in the trailer park, and I didn’t want to roll up and start knocking on the wrong doors. I finally got in touch through another person’s number that was passed along. When I told him I’d bring his check and the amount, he suggested a time, date, and place which worked for me. The day I drove out to the parking lot near his trailer, he came walking up at the appointed time. I got out, said hello, and held out the envelope. Without ever looking up to acknowledge me, he opened the envelope and inspected the contents. After a quick glance, he abruptly turned and walked back in the direction of his trailer without uttering a single word.

In spite of all this, I occasionally track down my brothers to check on them and see how they’re doing. This usually means going out of my way; otherwise, our paths would most likely never cross. Sometimes they’re glad to hear from me, other times not so much. However, to this day, neither one of my younger brothers, both of whom are in their fifties, has ever picked up their phone to give me a call or shoot me a text to say hello or to see how I was doing.

Not ever, not even once.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (7: I Dream Of Gene)

In my dream, I was asleep in my bed when my mom walked in. The brightness that flooded my room when she opened the door woke me, but barely. I was situated in a way that all I had to do was open one eye to see her silhouette against the opening into the lit hallway. Judy-O walked in and closed the door behind her, cigarette in hand. It was only a dream, but it seemed so real.

With the door shut, all I could see was the glowing ember of her cigarette. In my dream, I traced the embers’ path through the darkness, and I could tell she had plopped down in a chair along the wall opposite my bed. She sat there smoking the remainder of her cigarette until it was down to its last few puffs. I had no clue what was happening or what my mom was up to. She’d never come into my room like this before. In my dream, I continued to feign sleep because I was truly befuddled by what was happening. To reflect on that memory feels like I’m attempting to describe what it must be like to have a dream about having a dream, which may be the most abstractly meta thing imaginable.

Then, in what I still believed to be a dream, my mom finally spoke. She said, “Phillip, I hope you’re asleep... because I need to tell you something that you might not want to hear. I need to tell you about your real dad.”

Judy-O proceeded to tell me a story that occurred during the fall of ‘61, two years into her marriage to her husband, Tommie Dean. She said she happened to meet a guy named Gene Lawrence who was in the Army, lived in Georgia, was a few years older than her, and wanted to be a lawyer. She told me that nine months later, I was born, and he was my real dad. That’s it, end of story. I don’t remember anything else from that night other than that very lucid dream.

When I awoke the next morning, the first thing I thought of was the crazy dream about my mom and some guy named Gene Lawrence. As I mulled it over in my head, I wondered if it was even a dream. It seemed so real, so vivid. The more I thought about it, the less sure I became. If it wasn’t a dream and my mom’s story had some truth to it, some guy named Gene Lawrence was my real father, and not the guy who’d been raising me as his own. So I got up, got dressed, and headed towards the kitchen where my mom was preparing our breakfast. By then, I’d convinced myself the story must be true because it was so unambiguous and explicit.

I walked into the kitchen and sort of expected a sly glance from my mom, but she was her normal self. Her blonde hair was tied back, and she looked really happy as the morning sunlight filtered through the pine trees just beyond our solitary kitchen window. The sun’s rays created a contoured outline around her cute, bobbed hairdo. She was also singing that Peggy Lee tune about it being a good day for singing a song. I sat down on a stool and watched her. I wanted to sing along, but was content to watch my mother do it a capella to her heart’s content. As she sang, she fried some sausage in a skillet, then poured the grease into the tin canister that sat on the back of her stove. My mom fried herself an egg over easy in the same skillet. Next, she took the remaining grease and added some flour into the pan along with a precise amount of milk. Then Judy-O added some water and began to slowly stir until it was no longer soupy. When the gravy was thick enough, she sprinkled in a dash of salt & pepper and removed the skillet from the burner. Finally, she pulled a piping hot hoe cake from the oven. She was done cooking, and it was time for us to eat.

At that point, I honestly began to think it had to have been a dream after all. Seriously, it was too surreal. So I didn’t immediately tell anyone about this Gene Lawrence guy because I didn’t think the story had legs. I let myself believe that even if it hadn’t been a dream, it was probably another one of those whoppers my mom told me from time to time. That was a much more plausible explanation since embellishing a good story is what she was apt to do when given the opportunity. If I’d learned anything about my mom, it’s that she tended to exaggerate, and it seemed she did that more often than not.

And while Judy-O did tend to stretch the truth from time to time, what my mom didn’t do - at least not for the next twenty-five years - was say another word about Gene Lawrence.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (8: Koolsville)

Since it was the seventies and we were coming up during a time when kids used to ride in the back of pickup trucks and nobody cared, one day my mom told me to sit in the driver’s seat instead of my usual position on the passenger side. Judy-O and I were about the same height by then - she weighed less than a hundred pounds soaking wet - so the seat was already in the right spot and I could easily reach the pedals.

I quickly realized I already knew how to drive. I learned it the same way I’ve learned just about everything else in my life, by mimicking the behavior of others who were doing what I wanted to do. As a kid, I was aware enough to figure out the male role models in my life were either inadequate or didn’t care enough to show me the ropes, or both. I don’t know why it was that way, but it was. None of that stopped me from paying close attention to how others did what they did when they did it. I always took good notes too, even if they were only in my head.

My mom, sitting to my right, put the keys in the ignition and looked at me, waiting. When I glanced at her before starting the car, she was smiling, like she knew I could do it. I turned the key, and the Vega’s engine came to life. I put my foot on the brake, then slid the shifter to drive. I released the brake pedal, gave the wagon some gas, and drove it like I’d done it a thousand times. I even turned on the blinker before we made it to the end of the street because I already knew where we were headed. When I made the next right turn onto the main road through our neighborhood, my mom had me take a detour. She explained that whenever I drove her car, I should take as many backroads as possible. I correctly presumed that was to reduce the risk of our neighbors catching me driving Judy-O’s Vega. The detour added another half-mile to the trip, but it definitely took us by fewer houses. She also said that I needed to park behind the store for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain.

We made that drive with no issues whatsoever. The next day, she let me drive there and back by myself. I played it safe, followed her directions, and didn’t get caught. The attendant at the register didn’t even flinch when I said, “And two packs of Kools, filtered,” as I placed my candy bar on the counter. My mom had given me two dollars and said to get whatever I wanted. This may not sound like a big deal, but you have to remember that in ‘74 cigarettes cost forty-five cents a pack and a candy bar was a quarter. I quickly realized that by being frugal, I could pocket a dollar every trip. Although in reality, I was only buying more candy for my stash.

While I relished the luxury of driving by myself, and I certainly enjoyed having more candy and cash than normal, I was also developing another fascination. Some of the kids at school the previous year, the more urbane ones whom I studied from a safe distance, were surreptitiously smoking. Of course, I thought they were cool. So one day I told the guy at the cash register to give me three packs of Kools. When I got home, I gave my mom her packs, and I hid one in my room. A while later, my mom said she needed to run an errand with my brothers, and she’d be gone for about an hour, so I decided to shoot my shot.

I had never actually smoked a cigarette before, although I’d studied countless butts that had been snuffed out in my parents’ ashtrays around our house. I didn’t find the smell all that appealing, but that didn’t stop anyone else I knew from smoking. In the seventies, it seemed like more people smoked than didn’t, and nobody gave a rat’s ass about the surgeon general, whoever that guy was. In the evenings at my house, when both of my parents were home and had retired to our den after supper, they would smoke like chimneys. I remember leaving my room and walking down the hall on those evenings. There would be a light gray cloud of smoke clinging to our ceiling. I often had to duck to walk under it. That’s a lot of second-hand smoke.

When I opened the pack of Kools, I got a whiff of menthol as the aroma of its chemically-coated tobacco permeated the air. I couldn’t decide if I should go into our bathroom and turn on the vent fan or just chance it in my room with the window open. I decided that since it would be about an hour before anyone got back, I’d blow smoke out the window next to my bed. I grabbed the pack of matches I’d picked up at the convenience store and knocked out a fresh cigarette and put it in my mouth, like I’d seen my dad do hundreds of times before. I could instantly feel the sting of the menthol on my virgin lips. I struck a match, put it up to the business end of the Kool, and inhaled.

As I held in that first lungful of adulthood, I realized the smoke from the cigarette was wafting right out my open window, just as I’d hoped. I exhaled another grey plume and watched it disappear into the atmosphere. I paused for a moment and reflected on what I was doing, trying to decide if I felt worldly and refined, like the more sophisticated kids at school whom I had stealthily studied across the courtyard during lunch. I wondered if I showed up in their inner circles on the playground, cigarette in hand, if I’d have the same degree of parvenu afforded to other burgeoning smokers.

While I wasn’t sure if this really elevated my social stature in any way, I was getting a serious buzz off my cig. It only took a moment for my brain to recognize the effects of the dopamine that was beginning to course through my veins. I was grinning like a cat and began smoking even faster. Before I knew it, I’d put it out and was reaching for another one. I quickly finished the second cigarette and started thinking about what would happen if my parents found out I’d been smoking. On one hand, I figured they probably wouldn’t really care, but I also didn’t think it was worth the risk. So I decided I had to smoke them all before they got home, which meant consuming twenty cigarettes in less than an hour. After those first two, I started smoking them three at a time. It wasn’t pretty, and I was a sweaty, dizzy mess by the time I extinguished the last of the pack.

As asinine as that stunt was, it was also the best thing I could’ve ever done. By that point in my social experiment, I felt nauseous and repugnant. It was disgustingly awful, and I never again wanted to smoke a cigarette. While I look back at that day and recognize that smoking an entire pack in one sitting is insidious, it pales in comparison to my mom thinking it was a good idea for her eleven-year-old son to be driving her car around our neighborhood all by himself. However, even that first-ever driving experience, as verboten as it was, would soon be overshadowed by the dubious things my dad would expose me to in the weeks ahead.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (9: Tall Boys)

A few times every week of that summer, my dad, Chunk, and Porky would meet up after work to enjoy a cold beer together. My dad also began letting me tag along. This meant he’d come home from his day job working in maintenance, unzip his work boots, and slip into some sneakers. He would then tell me to get in the car, and we’d head back down the road to rendezvous with Chunk and Porky at Bud’s beer joint, which was a few miles away out on Highway 29 past the King Cotton Drive-In.

By the time my dad and I got to the bar, his two buddies would already be there. Chunk’s chopper was always parked out front, and Porky’s pristine, pearl white ‘69 Chevelle would be on prominent display. When we walked in, the two of them were always sitting on barstools at a high-top table, shootin’ the breeze. That was Chunk’s cue to go to the bar and order three Schlitz Tall Boys, one for each of them, and a Dr Pepper for me. This happened like clockwork every time we’d go. Then one day, towards the very end of July, Chunk went to the bar and got four Tall Boys and no Dr Pepper. He came back to the high top, set the four beers in the center of the table, and plucked off each pull-tab. My dad and his two buddies each grabbed the beer closest to them, leaving one remaining in the center of the table. I just stared at the can as beads of condensation began to form. Before I could ask, Chunk reached out with his hand and slid it in my direction just to make it clear whose beer it was.

Here I was, a few days shy of my twelfth birthday, and I was about to partake in what would be a monumental right-of-passage for almost any young person: their first adult beverage. I studied that frosty can of ale and then looked at my dad, but he wasn’t paying me any attention. I looked at Chunk and then Porky, but they didn’t seem too interested in me either. So I grabbed the can, put it to my lips, and gave it a good, long swig. I honestly don’t remember what it tasted like and couldn’t have cared less. I also didn’t try to keep pace with any of them, but I did manage to finish over half of it. They never said a word to me, never patted me on the back, and didn’t provide any fanfare whatsoever regarding my sudden introduction into their beer-drinking world.

By the time they were ready to go, I sort of understood what all the fuss was about. When I stepped off the barstool to leave with my dad, I had to take a moment to collect myself and regain my balance, which caused Porky to chuckle. At that moment, I really didn’t mind him or anyone else having a laugh at my expense. It felt good to be one of the guys.

I was quickly realizing that summer was all about my inclusion into my dad’s world. It was time to step up and earn my stripes, go on a snipe hunt, pay my dues, and pull my own weight. My first beer was a test. I know that now. It was a test to see if I was ready for whatever was about to happen next, and to see if I could keep a secret without being asked. I must have passed because my biggest challenge was looming in a few weeks.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (10: Lover’s Hideaway)

That summer, my mom and dad had first shift day jobs during the week, and we had the run of the entire place. The only rule was that my brothers and I had to have it all ship-shape by the time our parents got home in the afternoon. It helped that we could blitz our tiny house in ten minutes to cover our bases.

When the outside temps soared, my friends and I almost always played in our basement, which was mostly underground and therefore well insulated from the sweltering heat. We could also play the jukebox as loud as we wanted, since the subterranean cellar was naturally soundproof. The jukebox held several dozen records at any given time. There were some killer tunes like ‘Brandy’ by Looking Glass, ‘Family Affair’ by Sly Stone, ‘Satin Sheets’ by Jeanne Pruitt, ‘Pop That Thang’ by the Isley Brothers, and ‘Schools Out’ by Alice Cooper. Furthermore, my mom had lined the dance floor with dozens of fluffy pillows, which often became impromptu wrestling mats for my brothers and our friends.

Another reason my buddies in the neighborhood liked coming to my house was my parents always left their Playboy and Penthouse magazines lying around the way most of my friends’ parents left out the TV Guide and Reader’s Digest. I overheard my mom mention that she thought it was healthy for her sons to be comfortable with the human body. Letting us ogle the current Playmate of the month was her way of making that happen. Of course, my friends didn’t mind, but that was probably another sign, a foreshadowing of things to come, now that I know what I know.

Earlier that year, my parents had already held a few large get-togethers at their place - maybe a half-dozen couples came over on each occasion. The women stayed upstairs, and the guys hung out in the basement. I bounced back and forth enough to know that my dad’s buddies were helping with things like wiring circuits for a fridge, replacing vacuum tubes in the jukebox, and hanging strobe lights. My mom was posted up around our kitchen table, where she played cards with all the girls, some of whom didn’t seem much older than me. A few of them enjoyed flirting with me while my mom watched it all with her new shag hairdo coiffed just right for those occasions. She never said a word to discourage her friends from seductively teasing her eldest son. Judy-O once tried to set me up with a girlfriend’s younger sister. At the time, I was too inexperienced to realize what was going on. I think my mom chalked it up to a failed experiment, but the details of that encounter are something I’d rather take to my grave. That girl was too young, even if she didn’t act like it.

It was about the same time I became drinking buddies with Chunk and Porky that my mom christened the newly completed party room in our basement. About six months earlier, during the holidays, my parents had moved from their master bedroom, on the back corner of the main floor, to the new one in the basement. My dad even installed a brand-new waterbed. That also meant I’d gotten their old bedroom all to myself.

The way my mom named their new party room was by putting up a big, illuminated sign in the middle of the stairwell that led to the basement. In bold, cursive font were the words Lover’s Hideaway. It was a repurposed bar sign she’d stripped of its original logo and painted on the new moniker. If that name seems like a dead giveaway, then fine, but I didn’t have a clue as to what was really going down in our basement.

Then they had one helluva celebration the evening before my twelfth birthday. I remember my mom told me that under no circumstances whatsoever could I venture downstairs once the party started. My mom allowed me to sit on the top step, and that was as close as I could get. Up until that bash, I was allowed to run around unfettered, but the party that was about to go down was next-level stuff.

Over the course of the evening, a lot of people showed up - more than I could count. Out of curiosity, I walked outside and stood in the street in front of our house, and took a good look. There were cars as far as I could see, with people still coming, most of whom I didn’t recognize. Many of them had a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other as they followed the procession of partygoers towards the Lover’s Hideaway. After the sun began to fade behind the pine trees, I went back inside and took my spot at the top of the stairs. I could hear multiple conversations going on at once, along with sporadic bursts of laughter at whatever had happened, but I couldn’t make out anything being said. There was also a fair amount of smoke billowing up the stairwell. We didn’t have central air, so any rising cigarette vapor would linger along the basement ceiling until it made its way to the stairs, where it eventually rose and dissipated. This smoke didn’t smell like the Kools and Winstons that my mom and dad puffed on rather prolifically. It smelled kind of sweet and slightly pungent. I thought it smelled good. I figured my mom must’ve been burning some new incense or something. Otherwise, I just sat there listening to the music emanating from our jukebox as I stared at the new sign adorning the entrance to our party palace. Sooner or later, somebody would have to come upstairs since we still didn’t have a bathroom in our basement.

Before too long, some of the ladies needed to relieve themselves. It was mid-summer in upstate South Carolina, so it was still sultry long after the sun had set for the day. Even though they were all down in the basement, where it was cooler than upstairs, there was still a lot of body heat. So when those young ladies made their way by me on their way to our bathroom, their suntanned skin was usually glistening. I thought they were lovely to look at since most of them were wearing nothing but halter tops and a pair of shorts. Some had on sundresses, but obviously not much else. They all looked happy, and most of them were glassy-eyed.

As the evening wore on, more and more of my parents’ friends, many of whom I still didn’t recognize, were making the trip up and down the stairwell. A few of them began needing some assistance, and I was eager to lend a hand. Because I was being so helpful, they started giving me tips in the form of pocket change. By the early morning hours, as the party was winding down, I’d made over twenty bucks in loose coins. A few of the younger ladies in attendance began sitting down with me at the top of the stairs, probably worn out from all the shenanigans going on down in our basement. None of them seemed to care that their disheveled clothes were barely covering the more intimate parts of their anatomy. When a few of them found out it was my birthday, I began getting hugs and kisses in lieu of pocket change. I also got some longer-than-expected embraces from a few who were a bit more amorous. I even found myself at one point surrounded by a few young ladies, girls really, as one of them seductively slid onto my lap as I blushed.

By the time I went to bed, the early morning dew was settling outside, and most of our party guests had long since called it a night. When I finally awoke, I made my way to our kitchen. There were some items left out that were obviously from the party, such as a couple of liquor bottles my dad hadn’t put away. There were also a few plates that had once held hors d’oeuvres. I noticed quite a few butts snuffed out in a convenient ashtray. I left those alone since I was over my fascination with cigarettes. Otherwise, things looked normal. Any stragglers that had crashed on a couch had already gotten up and made their walk of shame to whatever ride was awaiting them. Later that day, since it was my birthday, we had my favorite meal of fried pork chops, rice & gravy, butter beans, and some of those fancy pull-apart dinner rolls. My mom made a birthday cake with twelve candles. We always had to have a yellow cake with chocolate icing, no exception, because that was my dad’s favorite. I never got a present for my birthday, just a card with some cash, usually ten dollars. Both sets of grandparents always got me cards with five bucks tucked inside.

As for those parties down in our basement, they continued like that for another couple of years. Some were even more renowned than the one that occurred on my twelfth birthday. There were fights, smoky burnouts in the street as pissed-off boyfriends got the hell out, people puking in the backyard, you name it. More and more people continued to show up, and sometimes the crowds would spill over to our den. I didn’t always stick around for those and kept to myself. Something about it, despite the cash tips and the not-so-unwanted advances from cute girls, felt indomitably dark and scary, but it was also fascinating to my pre-teen brain. No matter how much a part of me wanted to look away, I never could.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (11: Little Chicago)

I’ve thought a lot about how to describe my relationship with my dad. To say it was complicated would be a non sequitur. It was anything but complicated. His house, his rules - not much to debate. I respected that my dad had earned the right to do things his way in his own home. He was born in a dingy two-bedroom farmhouse in rural Spartanburg. As soon as his little sister came along, he was relegated to sleeping on the couch. Before he was even a teenager, he began working to be able to buy his own clothes. By the time he was a high school senior, he had to drop out because it was too hard. He then served in the military, where he was shipped off to patrol the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He came home to find his wife pregnant with their first child, me. He worked hard and provided for his family the only way he knew how, with his hands. Say what you want to about Tommie Dean, but I never went hungry, and I got to sleep in my own bed every night.

My dad also had an imposing physique, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever possessed, even though he and I are the same height. I wasn’t about to challenge him on anything, and I didn’t see anyone else going toe-to-toe with my dad back then. His nickname was Bull for chrissake. Many years later, when I was adulting with a real job, I had reasons to visit Michelin’s truck tire plant in Spartanburg. That’s where my dad was employed until he retired. He worked in their maintenance department as a mechanic from the early eighties until his last day in 2007. On those visits, if I ran into someone who was around back then, I’d ask if they remembered Bull. They always did, and I told them he was my dad, which surprised a few since we didn’t resemble one another at all. Most of them, I found, didn’t even know his real name. To them, he was just Bull.

One of the things my dad did during that time of our lives was make an occasional afternoon drive to an area known as Little Chicago, which was on the other side of Lyman Lake. While that area now has its own spot on the map, back then it was known as a roughneck section of the Spartanburg countryside where the OGs made decent corn liquor. Since this time of my life was rife with my dad dragging me off to places he normally went to alone, I saw some things most kids don’t ever get to see. Like I said, it was all a test.

On those occasions when he was going to Little Chicago that summer, he’d say, “Phillip, get in the car.” I always did too, no questions asked. The first few times we made the drive by Apalache Mill towards Lyman Lake, not a word was spoken. When we got to the place we were headed, my dad always turned off his Impala and told me to wait in the car. I affirmed his order with a nod of my head and sat there. My dad would disappear inside and always walk back out a bit later with a crumpled paper bag, which he always placed in the trunk before climbing back into his car. We’d drive straight home, and my dad would put the bag away for safekeeping. On one of those trips out to Little Chicago that summer, I got up the nerve to ask my dad what we were getting. He didn’t answer at first, and I thought I might’ve overstepped my bounds by asking him a direct question. Come what may, I was also curious and wanted to stick my toe a little deeper in the cesspool I was wading. He never looked at me, keeping his gaze straight ahead, and said, “Party supplies,” and that was it.

I now know what was in those incriminating paper bags because my mom eventually told me, but back then, I really didn’t even know what party supplies were exactly. I just knew it must be an essential component in keeping things lively during those Saturday evenings whenever my parents’ basement filled with glassy-eyed partygoers and that peculiar-smelling smoke.

Things changed right around my twelfth birthday. On a ride out to Little Chicago, my dad spoke without me asking him a question first. You’ve got to understand this about Tommie Dean: he rarely initiated a conversation other than to give me an order. So for him to start talking to me, explaining something, it made me rapt with attention.

To provide some additional perspective on my dad, I can tell you about a recent conversation I had with a bunch of my buddies, all of whom are about my age. Interestingly, the subject of ‘fatherly advice’ came up. One by one, each of my friends retold a story or two and regaled us with some of the more stellar nuggets of wisdom their fathers had laid on them over the years. One guy even proclaimed, rather boldly, that every father does this for their sons. I didn’t say a word. Eventually, I got asked about it. I calmly told them I couldn’t recall a single time in my entire life when my dad sat me down to explain something to me to help me navigate life more easily. Not one single time. Hell, he didn’t even tell me how tools worked, or how to start a lawn mower, or how to hit a baseball. Nothing. I later remembered that there had been one time when I got some advice from my dad. When the opportunity came for him to have “the talk” with me, at my mother’s insistence since I was starting to develop body hair, he kept it brief. I was in the bathroom, toweling off after taking a shower, and he walked in. He looked down at me and said, “You need to keep that thing clean.” That was it, and he walked out. I still keep it clean, too. To be fair, it was good advice.

As for that August afternoon in ‘74 when we were headed out to the country to pick up more contraband, the chat with my dad was a doozy. It really wasn’t much of a conversation, because I didn’t say anything other than “Yes, sir.” The one-way discussion began with my dad reaching across the Impala’s console to the glove box, right in front of me. He pressed the chrome button on the red metal door, and it fell open. Right on top was his silver snub-nosed revolver with the pearl handles. He didn’t even look at me when he said, “It’s loaded, know how to use it?” I affirmed for him that I did, and he reached over and shut the glove box. When we got to the same place in Little Chicago where we always went on those afternoons, he got out and shut the door. Through the open window, he looked back at me, nodded towards the glove box, and said, “Don’t be afraid to use that thing.” Then he turned and marched off to have a talk with someone inside. I could tell he was pissed as I sat there, dumbfounded. After a moment, I pressed the same chrome button and let the glove box door fall open again. I leaned forward to take a better look. I could see rounds in the cylinder of the pistol. It was definitely loaded. I didn’t touch it, but I did leave the glove box open, just in case.

Not much later, I saw the front door open and my dad walked out. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, much to my relief, so I shut the glove box. As he walked across their front yard towards his car, I also noticed two things. First, he didn’t have a paper bag. He was also counting some money, a big wad of which he stuffed into his pocket before getting back in the car. We drove home and neither of us said a word.

That was our last trip together to Little Chicago.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (12: Secret Handshake)

“Jim Crow” was not only a derogatory term for an African American, but it also became the official name given to the racial caste system, which functioned primarily in the southern United States and its surrounding borders from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century. During this time in the South, state and local laws were enacted by white, Democrat-led state legislatures to disenfranchise people of color during the Reconstruction era. That period of U.S. history began with the proclamation of the 13th Constitutional amendment that officially abolished slavery on December 18, 1865, and it culminated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That piece of federal legislation guaranteed the right for minorities to vote without fear of repercussion. Prior to that, those same white southern Democrats enacted Jim Crow-related constitutional provisions that mandated the segregation of all public places, including transportation and schools. This extended to restaurants, restrooms, and water fountains. Even though the 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery, ninety years later, Rosa Parks would famously refuse to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. Since it was a white person for whom she refused to concede her spot, it resulted in her arrest in 1955 for civil disobedience by violating the state’s Jim Crow segregation laws.

Down the road in Laurens, SC, a once tiny hamlet that sits just south of the Spartanburg County line, they still struggle with their racist past. Like many cities during the middle of the 20th century, Laurens had their very own segregated movie house, the Echo Theatre. By the end of the century, that same building housed the Redneck Shop in the heart of the town’s historic district. The proprietors, who were known Klansmen, sold KKK, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist paraphernalia like lynching photos and shirts that said: ‘Original Boys In The Hood.’ They also held Klan meetings there, to no one’s surprise.

I realize this may all sound incredibly foreign and antiquated these days, but this is what life was like not that long ago. While today’s cancel culture prevents citizens from talking about it openly, I’m quite certain there are plenty of people, many of whom still frequent the pews of our local churches, who still harbor some resentment about this subject. I’m sure I could probably find you a dozen friends of mine right now, a half-dozen easy, who would tell you that their daddies probably went to a Klan function back when we were kids.

The Klan meetings, however, were something entirely different. This is where the local Klan members and their affiliates planned outdoor rallies and related events. If you’re thinking this time was spent with a bunch of ignorant white men hootin’ & hollerin’ about how many blacks they were going to lynch, you’d be wrong. These get-togethers, which were held on Cannon Street in Greer at a building right across the road from an old grocery store-turned skating rink turned live music venue, were very civil and orderly. The building is still there to this day. I think it’s now a salon or a day spa, but back then it was operated by a local entrepreneur. I’m also inclined to believe this is where our jukebox came from, but I honestly don’t know for sure. From time to time, it was necessary to conduct larger meetings at other venues in town that were hosted by like-minded individuals. I recall my dad going to some of those, but I never tagged along.

It was also acceptable during this time for the son of a Klansman to become a Junior Klansman, to follow in their father’s footsteps. The only stipulation was that these recruits had to be at least twelve years old. Since Tommie Dean was an officer in the local KKK, it was imperative that I become a member too. It was another test to see if I was ready to walk in my dad’s shoes. I’m sure this is why he took me with him to Davenport the morning it mysteriously burned to the ground. It’s why I had my first beer with him and his buddies about a month earlier, and I’m certain it’s why he trusted me to have his back that day in Little Chicago when he confronted his drug dealer about getting ripped off. I still think about my dad expecting me to point that pistol at someone and pulling the trigger. I honestly think I would’ve done it. As I’ve said before, when I was a kid, I was hell bent on doing whatever it took to make my dad like me. I wanted this because I’d been born with the dreaded disorder bestowed upon many eldest sons - I longed for the absolute adoration of my father.

My Klan initiation wasn’t much to talk about. It was me and one other boy, whom I didn’t recognize. We were both joining on the same day because we’d recently celebrated our twelfth birthday. The informal ceremony was conducted by the Grand Magi while my old man and the other kid’s dad stood behind us and observed. As you might imagine, we swore an oath which required us to repeat some phrases with our hand on a King James bible. We were taught two terms: Ayak and Akia. Ayak is an acronym for “Are you a Klansman?” and the second term is the appropriate code word with which to respond. It stood for “A Klansman, I am.” Then we were taught the not-so-secret handshake we were to use to let others know, by way of introduction, that we were Klansmen. Over the years, I’ve shaken hands with white men who performed their version of this handshake. I’ve learned to hold their hand a little longer than normal and look them square in the eye, but I’ve always refused to reciprocate their handshake.

After the swearing-in ceremony, we hung around a bit while my dad chatted with the others. Outwardly, I didn’t feel any different, and nothing seemed to change. Inwardly, this all felt like more of the same kind of stuff that was happening when I was around my dad that summer, all done under the watchful eye of my mom.

My dad and I left and drove home. Once again, not a word was spoken between the two of us.

With the start of school a few days away, my mom took me to a local department store to buy some school clothes. I probably bought a pair or two of Wranglers, but I distinctly remember getting a lightweight nylon jacket with snap buttons. These were popular then, and I happened to get a new one which was about to be festooned with some patches.

I need to interject something about what was going on in my head during this specific time of my life. Because I’d become an officially sworn-in Junior Klansman, I’d gotten this vibe from my parents that it was time to step up my game. Up until that point, I felt as if I were watching parts of my life from a distance - as if it were some type of out-of-body experience. The Klan parts, the crazy parties down in the Lover’s Hideaway parts, the Little Chicago parts. It became increasingly evident that I was allowing myself to be a pawn in an ominous game. I knew enough to realize that my friends didn’t need to know some of these new details about my life, and if any of my buddies had their suspicions, they knew better than to ask.

It was just before Labor Day when my dad and a few of his white supremacist buddies got in a fight with some black dudes. Tommie Dean and I were at his cousin’s house in Lyman when the phone call came. The next thing I knew, my dad and I peeled out in his Impala, headed towards Greer. I lost track of the turns we took as my ol’ man drove like he probably knew his way around a dirt track. The moment we slid to a stop in someone’s front yard in a part of town I didn’t recognize, my dad jumped out, but not before grabbing his revolver from the glovebox. He told me to stay put as he took off inside.

In a matter of seconds, two of the black guys went out the same door and took off running as fast as their legs could carry them. A moment later, my dad came out, dragging a third guy in a headlock as two of his cohorts held the guy’s arms. The man squirmed but wasn’t able to say or do much as Tommie Dean tightened his grip. Once they had him out in the yard, my dad let go as the others held tight to the man’s wrists. I watched as Tommie Dean reached into his shirt pocket for his pack of cigarettes. After lighting a fresh Winston, he tucked the lighter back into his pocket, no longer showing any sense of urgency. As Tommie Dean stared at a man who had the apparent misfortune of being born black, he nodded to his sidekicks. Then the two of them begin beating the guy with their free hand as my dad observed. The young man, I’m guessing him to have been about twenty-five at the time, was helpless to defend himself as he took blow after blow to his ribs. Afterwards, as my dad walked towards his car, I realized that one of the guys he was with was my mom’s youngest brother, Bo. That meant my uncle was most likely a Klansman, which disheartened me. While I was troubled by how much violence came with my dad’s brand of bigotry, I was also baffled by how casual it seemed to Tommie Dean and his friends.

Why my dad thought it was a good idea for his twelve-year-old son to witness a racially motivated beatdown was something that I struggled to understand. Despite my confusion, what I’d definitely figured out was that my parents wanted me to assimilate more into their adult world. It was actually my mom telling me this stuff, pulling me aside and giving me suggestions, coaching me, grooming me. She also let me know my dad expected these things, which were dots my developing brain struggled to connect. There were countless times when I wanted to just run away, but I had no place to go. So I did the best I could to keep everything a secret.

This is where my nylon jacket becomes an integral piece of this story. Those patches it got weren’t the inescapable peace signs that adorned a lot of blue jeans back in the early seventies. These patches were the KKK logo, which is round with a red droplet of blood in the middle of a white iron cross. My dad had a stash of these since they were sold at Klan rallies. My mom sewed three of them on my jacket, one on each sleeve and another on the front. When Tommie Dean saw it, he said to wear it to school, and he didn’t ask me. He told me to.

I suddenly felt like I was figuratively standing on the edge of a real-life precipice.

I’ve experienced two legitimate phobias since my childhood. One of those was an intense fear of heights. I used to have a recurring dream about standing at the rim of a tall cliff, terrified, as I watched my little brother approach me and then stumble over the edge. In those dreams, nightmares really, I was always too frozen with fear to even attempt to save him as I watched his tiny face disappear from my sight. Inevitably, I’d wake up from those dreams the moment I realized my youngest sibling was falling to a certain death, with the awareness that I did nothing to save him. It was always gut-wrenching, and I would sit there stricken with grief, crying inconsolably. At that moment, knowing I was expected to wear my new jacket to school, around my classmates, made me feel like I was back up on that cliff again.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to go to the next chapter (12: Silent Treatment)

Even though I didn’t wear the jacket at school, I had to carry it with me wherever I went if it wasn’t in my locker. I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hang it up in a coat closet, and I wasn’t about to casually drape it over the back of a chair. I was hoping to avoid any and all questions about those patches and their significance. The first opportunity I got, I usually stuffed it in my locker. At the end of the day, I always took it home with me and put it back on when I got off the bus, provided no one was around. I did that because I believed my parents expected to see me proudly wearing my jacket.

However, at school, I was as nervous as a cat over someone asking me about my windbreaker. I also realized it was probably inevitable. Then one day it happened. It was late in the school day, and we were changing classes between bells. I had the jacket folded on top of my books because we were headed home after the next class, so I’d just retrieved it from my locker. Mike was sitting near me as we waited for the bell to ring. He noticed one of the patches on my jacket and said, “What’s that?”

Mike was from the south side of town, where most of the families didn’t appear to have quite as much as those living in the newer suburbs that had popped up on the north side of Greer. Not long after this incident, I saw Mike again, outside of school. My mom and I, as we liked to do on Saturday afternoons, would visit her dad, my Papa Ralph. My maternal grandfather also lived on the south side of town and was even lower on the social class ladder than I perceived Mike to be. As Judy-O and her dad chatted in the kitchen over some freshly parched peanuts, I headed to the front room of the house, where I happened to hear some voices outside. I walked out onto the porch and looked across the street towards the only vacant lot. I recognized Mike and four other guys about my age or older. They were tossing a football. Besides Mike, there was Timmy, whom we all called “One Eye,” even though both of his eyes were perfectly fine. Then there were the three Lambert brothers. They were overall-wearing farm boys who all looked alike except for the color of their hair. Each of them was known to start a fight at the drop of a hat for no particular reason. I knew I’d never want to cross paths with any of them. I didn’t actually know them well, and they certainly didn’t know me, but that was about to change.

As soon as I walked out onto the porch, one of the Lambert brothers noticed me. While I couldn’t hear him, I could tell he was asking the other boys about me. Mike looked up, saw me, said something to his friends, and they all began nodding affirmatively. Mike then waved me over to join them. I’d played plenty of backyard football, but never with guys this big and strong. They were several weight classes up from where I thought I belonged, so I wasn’t too excited about playing. I also knew that saying “No thanks” would be a death knell of sorts in our social circles. I wasn’t scared, but I did fear somewhat for my own safety. It didn’t matter, though. Next thing I knew, I was trotting across the street - another out-of-body experience to add to that year’s hit list.

We immediately picked teams for a three-on-three game of football. Our team kicked off, and the youngest of the Lamberts, the one with sandy blonde hair, caught the football and broke towards his right and into my path. He went hard to my left, and I realized he intended to stiff-arm me and barrel on by. That’s when I instinctively ducked his outstretched arm and dove at his legs for a perfectly timed tackle. By the time he jumped up, I was already on my feet, like I did it every day. He gave me a look of surprise and then let me know that was a damn fine tackle. The other guys did, too. I can’t tell you what happened the rest of the afternoon or who won. I just know they treated me as an equal, and it all ended well at a time in my life when I could use some optimism.

As for that day during September of ‘74, when Mike asked me about the patch, I shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Klan patch.” My classmate puzzled over that one for only a moment and then gave me a nod, as if he understood. Vouching for me that day we played football told me his dad might have been kind of like my dad and thought things that my dad thought. I also doubt if anyone would be surprised if one of those Lambert boys showed up at a Klan rally.

Once Mike knew, it was only a matter of time before other classmates found out, and I could tell they were eyeballing my jacket. Some even asked about it. A couple of days go by, and it’s not even a big deal anymore. I didn’t get sent home, didn’t get in any trouble, and nobody got their feelings hurt, at least not yet. I wasn’t even hiding my jacket with as much urgency as before. What did happen was another friend of mine, a black kid, found out. I saw him glaring at me and the jacket as I held it in my arms on the way to our final class of the day. I’ll never forget his expression. It wasn’t hatred, and it wasn’t loathing. It was fear. Suddenly, I felt very small and incredibly ashamed.

The remainder of the day at school was a blur. Getting home on the bus was too.

When I entered our house, I walked directly into the kitchen where my mom was preparing supper. Judy-O didn’t stop what she was doing, but as soon as she saw me, she knew something was wrong. She questioned me, but I hung my head. I had the crumpled nylon jacket in one hand, and I set it down on the counter. She asked me again what was wrong. I honestly don’t remember exactly what I said or how I said it, but I let my mom know I didn’t want to be in the Klan anymore. My mom stopped cooking long enough to nervously light another cigarette. After Judy-O quickly exhaled a stream of smoke into the air above our heads, she asked, “Do you want to tell your dad, or do you want me to?”

I’d so hurriedly decided to ditch the Klan that I hadn’t really thought about how my dad was going to react, but I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My mom finally says she’d tell him later that evening, after I’d gone to bed.

Looking back on that time of my life, one of the things that duped me into believing the Klan must have been more socially acceptable than I ultimately understood it to be, other than the fact that practically everyone in our circle of influence didn’t openly object to racial segregation, was my mom’s involvement. Judy-O had always given me the vibe that she was more understanding and tolerant of people of different ethnicities. She always seemed to understand their plight. So her obsequious devotion to my dad and his hobbies led me to believe it was all okay, until I realized it wasn’t.

The next day and the days that followed, my dad didn’t yell at me, he didn’t scold me, and he didn’t spank me. He didn’t talk to me either, not for a whole decade. That’s right, the silent treatment for ten years, which spanned my entire four years of high school and beyond. We lived under the same roof and ate at the same table, and he never acknowledged me except for one time in high school when I had to ask him what I hoped would be a thought-provoking question. It took him about one second to respond with “No,” end of discussion. If there was something he needed me to do, he would have my mom tell me. She’d then say something like “Phillip, your dad wants you to cut the grass” or “Phillip, your dad needs you to take out the trash.” Chores like those were performed immediately, without any lip. As a result, my old man and I never had an actual conversation for ten consecutive years.

In hindsight, I now realize how much I probably embarrassed my dad. He had to go back to the Klan den on Cannon Street and tell his racist buddies that his piece-of-shit son didn’t have the cojones to be a Klansman. To be honest, I don’t know what he said or did. Even though Tommie Dean and I eventually developed a cordial relationship, we never talked much about his Klan affiliation. It’s almost like it never happened. It wasn’t until I asked him to be the best man at my wedding in ‘84 that he decided to bury the hatchet and speak to me again. Later in life, during conversations with my dad, I’d make occasional references to the Klan and his participation. He always nodded his head in response but never commented in any way, as if he had nothing to say about it. It’s like that time in history only exists in folklore, and Bull the Klansman is some mythical being.

I understand, now more than ever, why oral histories regarding ancestral legacies can be sacred to some families. Now that I’m not only a father, but a grandfather, I know how it makes me feel proud when one of my progenies shows an interest in any of my hobbies. I can imagine how hurt I might feel if one of them suddenly shaded me because I was outspoken about something they didn’t agree with. Looking back on my decision to denounce the Klan through my actions, even though I was too afraid to confront my ol’ man about it, was absolutely the right thing to do. I’ve never second-guessed it, even though my dad, whom I desperately wanted to like me, treated me with contempt instead. The thing is, I was beginning to not care as much about what Tommie Dean thought of me. I was finally at an age where I was developing my own opinions about the world around me, which allowed me to establish my own beliefs based on an evolving perception of right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and evil. I knew racism was wrong, pretending to be xenophobic was bad, and the Klan was evil.

I also realize that writing about this time of my life and telling my truth is effectively letting some skeletons out of the closet. I’m not going to apologize for that either. I’m self-aware enough about my connection with my own past to understand that just because we sweep all that dirt under the rug doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I’ve spent a large portion of my adult life pretending a lot of my past didn’t happen, like my dad did with his Klan affiliation. Now that I know what I know, I’ve decided to do some housekeeping of my own. No more skeletons in the closet, no more dirt under the rug.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (14: Shotguns)

Those Saturday evening rendezvous in our basement with my parents’ most intimate friends were starting to occur more often. So much so, my mom was sending my two younger brothers off to spend the night with our grandparents. I got to stay home, though, most likely because Judy-O thought I was old enough. Now that I know what I know, I probably wasn’t old enough, in fact, I’m certain I wasn’t, but my mom - and apparently some of her friends - liked having me around. So I got to stay, but I didn’t sit on the top steps anymore. I felt that was only tempting fate, as tempting as it was.

At school, other than a few of my classmates keeping me at a safe distance, things were fine. If anything, the current events, combined with the cultural climate of the day, had made me somewhat more popular. Okay, popular is probably a stretch, but more of my classmates certainly knew who I was. Girls, who were already beginning to make me stop and take notice, were noticing me. I even had my first French kiss later that same school year. The girl was directly in front of me as we left the study hall on our way to gym class. She was walking with her friends, and I was right behind her. The next thing I knew, she’d spun on her heels and had her tongue in my mouth, right there in front of God and everybody.

In retrospect, growing up in the seventies was liberating. While there was definitely some crazy monkey business going on, I typically felt safe, cared for, and well-fed. Even those occasional beatings with my dad’s belt didn’t leave me with any physical scars any more than they left me with a desire to one day do the same to my own children. I had more friends than ever and even had my own room with a half-bath. In addition to the incredible music coming from my parents’ jukebox, I also had fewer rules to adhere to than other kids my age. I could typically stay out later, stuff like that. I’m quite positive this was all due to my mom and dad’s laissez-faire attitude towards parenting, of which I was an obvious beneficiary. However, as these things are apt to go, it all came with a price tag.

While my mom had de-escalated her involvement with anything Klan-related, she’d picked up a new hobby of her own. She had a sudden fascination with the occult and those types of things that would be considered supernatural. I think a catalyst was when she discovered a series of books on Pyramid Power and became preoccupied with pyramidology. She seemed truly fascinated that the ancient pyramids might’ve held hidden secrets that had the power to trigger sexual urges, among other things. I also noticed more and more books on related subjects. There were books about Wiccans, there were books about strange disappearances in the Bermuda triangle, there were books about casting spells, there were books about aliens, there were books about alien abductions, there were books about exorcising demons, you name it, and she was probably reading up on it. Because she was always reading stuff like this, she always had something fascinating to talk about with anyone who’d listen.

To say she really liked to talk about those things is an understatement, and boy, did she talk fast. She’d speak even more rapidly when she was excited, which she usually was whenever she had a captive audience. It was exhausting trying to keep up with her in those moments.

At home, she was always practicing incantations and setting up candles in the shape of a pentagram. She also had a satanic bible and claimed to be an atheist, a belief which she more or less maintained up until she passed away at the age of 69. Whenever friends came over, my mom would entertain us by summoning the spirit of someone dead. My buddies loved it. I took it in stride but was beginning to feel self-conscious about anything that seemed to deviate from what I thought was normal. I wasn’t appalled by it, but it was beginning to make me uncomfortable.

Since her newfound interests were being encouraged by others, Judy-O took her act to the Lover’s Hideaway. Her seances and incantations quickly became fan favorites at their parties and other impromptu get-togethers. They even had a theme party around Halloween where everyone dressed up as witches and warlocks. My mom put out a big punch bowl in the kitchen with a boozy concoction she called witches’ brew. This was one of the parties where every room of the house, including my bedroom, was not off-limits to guests. During those parties, my mom warned me that they also needed access to the half-bath in my bedroom. Judy-O made it clear she would offer some quid pro quo reciprocity and encouraged me to hang around upstairs as long as I wanted, even telling me I could help myself to her punch. She reminded me I might have to find somewhere else to sleep. That wasn’t a problem since my two younger brothers were spending the night at our grandparents’. But my mom also reminded me that under no circumstances could I go downstairs once the Lover’s Hideaway sign was turned on.

At the Halloween party, I was familiar with quite a few of the regulars. Chunk and Porky were always there because wherever you saw one, you saw the other. Chunk had a different girl every time, and Porky was usually alone. There were those whose names I never knew long enough to stick, but I could always remember their faces. For a year or two, they were always around and were all nice to me. As I’ve already mentioned, many of the girls didn’t seem much older than I was at the time, and their All Hallows’ Eve costumes that night were very revealing to my pubescent eyes.

After an hour or so, and since nobody had bothered to use my bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, where I thought I heard a couple of voices. Sure enough, it was Diane, one of my mom’s closest friends, and a couple of the young ladies whom I remembered from the party my birthday weekend. I recognized them because they were two of the girls who were exceptionally nice to me by way of hugs and kisses while sitting on the steps that night. As soon as I walked into the kitchen, they seemed thrilled to see me, as if they were expecting me. There was nobody else, just them and a big bowl of vodka-infused Halloween punch to which my mom had added green food coloring so it would look like something from a witches’ cauldron. They each had a glass, and Diane poured another one and slid it my way with a wink.

I then realized that all three of them were dressed like cats, but barely. They’d painted whiskers on their cheeks and had the tips of their noses painted black, in keeping with the feline theme. They were all wearing halter tops and either a really short skirt or even shorter shorts. It was hard not to notice all the skin. Each of them had on several Halloween-themed necklaces like the kind you might find at a convenience store check-out. I tried to keep my gaze at eye level, even though I’d already gotten the impression they didn’t really care what I looked at. Diane was one of my mom’s closest friends and had no kids. I think she was in her late twenties and very attractive. Dirty-blonde hair with green eyes like mine and tanned skin that always glowed like she’d just sauntered right out of a ray of sunshine. I’m sure she knew how often I stole glances her way. The other two girls seemed closer in age to me than they did to Diane. I’m guessing they were late teens and probably graduated high school during the previous year or two.

That’s when I noticed the odor. It smelled kind of familiar, but I wasn’t sure where from. Then it hit me. It was the same smell I’d noticed in the stairwell the night before my birthday. Kind of sweet, kind of pungent. It only took me a few seconds to figure out it was coming from the hand-rolled cigarette of the girl directly opposite me in our group of four. Diane was watching me the whole time and recognized that I noticed it. She quickly reached down, grabbed the joint from the girl’s hand, said “Might as well,” and took a long toke. Then she pursed her lips in the direction of the girl she’d taken the joint from and blew smoke directly into her pursed lips as she inhaled.

Wait, what?

The third girl, the one directly to my left, wondered aloud if my mom would be upset with me being there for that. Diane quickly chimed in to say Judy-O wouldn’t care, like she knew that my mom really wouldn’t care. I still didn’t know what was going on, though. Then the girl opposite me takes the remains of the joint, leans in close with her black kitten nose, and says, very seductively, “Want a shotgun,” and then takes a toke as our eyes lock.

At this point, as fast as things were transpiring, I was having a very difficult time keeping up. I felt like I was about to bite off way more than I could chew. Truthfully, I was hoping Diane would jump in and throw me a lifeline. I’d yet to figure out that they were all wondering the same thing: did I want to get high?

So I said, “What’s a shotgun?”

That caused all of them to howl, so I nervously laughed along. Then the girl to my left said, “They just did a shotgun,” motioning to Diane and the other girl. She explained that you take a big puff of a joint and then blow the smoke into someone else’s mouth so you can both get high. Then she says, “Here, let me show ya,” as she reached for the joint. I don’t know what expression I had on my face at that moment, but Diane had the presence of mind to intervene on my behalf. She seemed to sense I was about to hit the panic button.

Diane exclaimed, “Oh, he’s fine,” and encouraged me to enjoy my drink. I could tell I must have looked flustered because Diane was perceptive enough to quickly change the conversation to distract from my sudden embarrassment. I took my first gulp of my mom’s witches’ brew as the three of them continued talking. I was still trying to figure out what had happened. I was twelve, and didn’t know much about getting high with a joint, whatever that was.

After a moment of me sitting there, no longer a part of the conversation, I nervously excused myself so I could prevent any more indignity. Diane looked my way, and I told her I was going to go to my room. She gave me a look as if it was okay. The other two girls said “Bye” as I turned to leave, and I felt like I had my tail between my legs. As I trudged away, I heard them giggle, presumably at my awkwardness. For all the times in my life where I’ve felt humbled by moments like that, I still haven’t gotten used to the feeling.

As I lay on my bed, about ten more minutes passed, and I heard the three young ladies in our kitchen head towards the stairs, still laughing. Diane stepped into my room to ask if I was okay. I told her I was fine. She stood in my open doorway for a moment, like there was something else she wanted to say. She was studying me and said she was sorry about all that in the kitchen. Again, I told her I was okay. The last thing she asked me was whether I had any questions.

I realize now Diane was probably asking me if I wanted a better explanation as to what a joint was, or what they meant by “getting high.” I just shrugged, so she said goodnight. Now that I know what I know, I’m confident my mom put Diane up to conducting my initiation ritual that evening. Diane, like my mom, probably thought she was doing me a favor, giving me some kind of street cred. This was their way of showing me that they cared. I get that now, but I didn’t then. That would come later, after Judy-O left us for wherever atheists go when they die.

As I sat there that night, reflecting on the devilry with Diane and her two young girlfriends, I thought about the movie Easy Rider. I’d recently watched it with my parents, even though we arrived late and missed the opening scenes. My mom was very much into the biker film genre that was popular in the early seventies. We saw several of those types of movies during that time of our lives, usually double features at one of the local drive-ins in the area, with my brothers and me sitting in the back of our dad’s Impala. Most of these films had a definite Hell’s Angels vibe, with scintillating, innuendo-laced titles like The Hard Ride or Savage Abduction. In recalling the dialogue of the much-ballyhooed Easy Rider flick, I remembered the moment by the campfire where Wyatt and Billy introduced George, played by Jack Nicholson, to marijuana. In that scene, they talked about getting high on grass, seeing UFOs, talking to bullfrogs in the middle of the night, and freedom. After my mom’s failed attempt to persuade me to smoke weed with her friends earlier that evening, I did the math and figured out what a joint and a shotgun were. I also suspected it was marijuana that had the unique odor I’d noticed on those occasions when my parents were partying with their friends. As much as a part of me still wanted to go sit on the stairs or hang out in the kitchen that night, to see what other mysteries of my parents’ adult world could be unraveled for me, I was also apprehensive. The last thing I wanted to do was be embarrassed again.

Fortunately, no one needed my bathroom or bothered me the rest of the night. I eventually dozed off and slept until the sun woke me up the next morning. I got up and realized my parents were gone and that I was home alone. My first thought was they had gone to pick up my two younger brothers after they’d spent the night with our grandparents. Then it hit me, if I was home alone, then it was a good time to go explore downstairs for anything illuminating. I was still curious as to what ‘party supplies’ I might find, since they seemed to fuel my parents’ soireés down in our basement.

I jumped up and headed to the Lovers Hideaway. The closer I got to ground zero, the more it smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. It was bad. There were dirty glasses everywhere with discarded cigarette butts soaking in the remnants of the previous evening’s secrets. Pillows were strewn all over the checkerboard-patterned floor as if something other than dancing had been going on. There was also a projector screen in the far corner. Then I noticed an 8mm projector sitting on the bar. I didn’t even know we had one of those.

I really wanted to do a deeper dive and figure out what else was lurking in the shadows. But I couldn’t afford to risk getting caught down there unsupervised and had no clue when my parents might be back. I also knew there would be other opportunities to sneak around and find more clues as to what happens down in the Lover’s Hideaway after the sun goes down. I had a sneaking suspicion there were more than shotguns on display.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (15: Wiggle Room)

As for those Saturday night parties in my parents’ basement, there were about two dozen regulars, maybe more, coming around in those days. These were the men and women who were so welcomed by my parents that they didn’t have to bother knocking. Even though this close-knit group of friends was all very nice, I’d learned to keep to myself and stay away. There was still something about these get-togethers that caused me to feel anxious, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was. As much as a part of me wanted to have a chance at a do-over with Diane and her younger girlfriends, it terrified me to think I might have to do something I wasn’t ready for, at least not yet. So instead, I played outside with whoever might still be up past their bedtime. If there was no one around, I’d sit on our carport and listen to the music and laughter emanating from our basement. Occasionally, there would be cheers and wolf-whistles, but I had no clue as to why.

I also hadn’t explored the basement after any more parties. I was learning the ropes pretty fast in those days and knew enough to know I might not like the answers I found down there. I still wasn’t over the embarrassment of having my naïvete exposed during the Halloween party the previous autumn. Being embarrassed was becoming something that seemed to happen more often when I found myself too interested in my parents’ world. As tantalizing as it all was, I ultimately figured it’d be better to leave well enough alone. So I stayed away from the Lover’s Hideaway.

Meanwhile, my mom had taken her incantations and seances to a whole other level. Her fascination with the occult had turned a corner, and she was no longer describing her interest as if it were some novelty. She was exceedingly interested in witchcraft and referred to herself as a bona fide witch. It was hard to tell if this was all an act to keep interest up or if she really believed she was a legitimate witch. Either way, the focus of their parties - at least the first hour or so - was centered around my mom’s spell-casting sessions and seances. Knowing my mom, I’m sure she put on quite a show.

On one hand, Judy-O was very intelligent, well-read, and incredibly artistic. My daughter and I currently have some of my mom’s paintings adorning the walls of our homes. My mom also wrote lots of poems, and I have many of them archived in her old scrapbooks for safekeeping. She even volunteered to help with the art class at my elementary school for a few weeks back in the early seventies. I was extremely proud of my mom then and was glad she was there for me to be able to show her off to my friends. She was always cheerful and seemed truly excited about whatever was happening, even if she didn’t completely understand it. I also appreciate that she had a surprisingly keen sense of sophistication. I know this because one of my mom’s high school chums once told me a story about Judy-O giving her a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume as a wedding gift while they were still teenagers.

On the other hand, my mother had a hard time sitting still and being normal. Her capricious nature often led her to rhapsodize about risqué subjects as if she had no filter. Being cute and somewhat mischievous gave her some latitude to recover from any breach of etiquette and other such faux pas she made around others. I could sense that my dad wasn’t as interested in giving her as much leeway and would prefer she try to blend in. But my mom was never going to blend in, and my dad was short-sighted to think she ever would. I also have to wonder how my mom was able to acquire a bottle of Chanel No. 5 with no more money than she had back in 1959.

Another thing about my mom that I began to figure out: she wasn’t exactly chaste. Back then, I didn’t even know there were words for what I was comprehending about Judy-O. Nonetheless, I knew enough to know that my mom’s hedonistic behavior was indicative of her sexual proclivities. I knew that because I was twelve going on twenty, but I didn’t understand it like I do today. I was aware enough back then, when I was around my friends’ moms, to know they were nothing like my mom. The more obvious those differences became, the more self-conscious and abject I became of my mom and her lascivious behavior, which was occurring more often. I realized a lot of the guys coming to our house for these parties were much more interested in my mom than they were ol’ Tommie Dean. I also had to wrap my head around the fact that my dad didn’t seem to mind.

A few years ago, I learned from my mom’s cousin, Carolyn, what life was like for Judy-O while growing up in the mill village in Lyman when she was just a kid. Carolyn, who also lived in the same mill village back then, told me my mom used to wait for another strange man to show up at their house during the day. This always occurred after their dad had gone to work at his first-shift job at Lyman Mill. Their mother, the one I’d eventually refer to as “Tama,” would invite these unfamiliar men over to visit, always after her husband had left for the mill. Then their mother would eventually disappear into her bedroom with these strangers and proceed to do what adults do when they’re incapable of keeping a promise. So, one day her daughter decided to sneak into her mom’s room, hide under her bed, and wait for the inevitable return with her strange man du jour. Judy-O would then listen as her mother had sex on that same bed. Carolyn claimed those rendezvous, underneath the bed in her mom’s room, were a common occurrence for her twelve-year-old cousin back then. Carolyn said she knew this because every time it happened, Judy-O told her about it, like it was no big deal.

While it now seems obvious just how much my mom was like her mom, I used to not think so. Even my mom’s fascination with the occult makes more sense when I stop to consider that folks used to routinely visit my Tama because she possessed the ability to ‘talk off warts.’ If you aren’t familiar with that term, you’re probably not alone. Then again, I’m sure I could ask many of my older southern compatriots and they’d quickly entertain me with a story about someone they knew from their past who either had a wart talked off or, better yet, knew of some elderly individual who could perform this procedure.

Talking off warts is a phenomenon with a storied past, even though it’s been around for centuries. It’s also an ostensibly southern tradition that’s handed down from generation to generation. My maternal grandmother once told me it’s something that gets passed on by way of a lengthy, ritualistic explanation. She also said women could only get it from men, and men could only get it from women. My Tama explained to me that it’s somewhat taboo to talk about the intricacies of talking off warts or to speak about the nuances of how it’s handed down to someone else. She further explained that if the person with this gift tells another how it works, then they’ll lose the ability. I’ve since learned that plenty of folks think talking off warts is the devil’s business and want absolutely nothing to do with it. According to my Tama, there’s no magic involved and it’s more of a matter of faith. That faith requires the two individuals involved in this solemn ceremony to truly believe the liberation from those unsightly warts was entirely possible. Otherwise, as was told to me by my late grandmother, it would never, ever work.

The gist of the actual procedure went something like this: the healer rubs something metallic, like a coin or knife blade, over the patient’s wart. While doing this, they murmur an incantation or a prayer. Whether or not it’s an incantation or a prayer is subject to debate and probably depends upon whom you ask. I just know that whatever the healer murmurs is done so low it’s unintelligible. When the healer is finished, they send the patient on their way. A week or two later, more often than not, the wart will have mysteriously vanished.

Some folks think ‘talking off warts’ is a myth, a thing of folklore. There are also those who believe it to be derived from spiritual entities of Native American origins. Others believe it to be black magic or voodoo. Then there are those skeptics who believe this magical wart cure is the result of hypnotic suggestion. All I know is that my maternal grandmother could do it. As for whom she may have passed that gift down to, let’s just say that I have my suspicions.

What I eventually came to realize, long after my mom and her mom had both left us, was how similar the two of them could be. Even so, Judy-O seemed to gravitate towards her dad’s company while her connection with her mom always felt forced. It’s not like they argued about things; in fact, they seemed to agree on whatever it was they might find themselves chatting about. It’s that they had a very perfunctory relationship. However, my mom always lit up when her dad walked into the room. She’d be almost giddy, and he knew it, which always made him smile.

As for my mother and how she compared to her mother, they both had two specific characteristics which stood out amongst the rest. The first was the seemingly insatiable longing for the touch of a man, and then there was the ability to perform feats that might as well have been magic to most people, like summoning spirits or making warts disappear by uttering some incantation. These were the ways Judy-O and her mom were eerily similar. Looking back, reflecting on the two of them with the realization that the decisions they made ultimately allowed me to exist in the form I do today, I’m thankful. It’s also why I love them both. However, I loved my mom the most, even though it was my Tama who introduced me to the brazen music of Loretta Lynn with her crooning critique of the times.

I wish I could do a better job of describing what my mom was like during that time in our lives. I still can’t seem to find the right terms, the right adjectives to use to paint a more accurate picture of her. Words like eccentric and idiosyncratic come to mind. Now, years later, after she has been dead for over a decade, I’m still at a loss for the right words regarding what my mom was like to be around back then. I cherished our time together and adored her immensely. I always wanted to be with her and to help her. As I got older, I began to realize the more I knew about her, the more I knew that I didn’t really know her as well as I thought I did. She really was a bird of a different feather, probably more than even she realized. I think William Blake might have been thinking about someone like my mom when he wrote, “No bird soars too high when they soar with their own wings.” Okay, maybe not exactly like my mom, but like her in the dreamers-got-to-dream sort of way. Say what you want to about ol’ Judy-O, but she lived a life that left her cheerful more often than not. I can say that because I never once heard her complain about anything or anyone, ever. She died the way she predicted she would die. She even told me, with a smile on her face, the last time we ever spoke, dying that way would make her happy.

Wherever she is, I like to imagine she’s soaring with other birds like herself. And something tells me she’s still soaring pretty high.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (16: Bad Luck)

It just so happened that a naysayer spoke up during the early moments of this party. It was an older guy named Ronnie, and he was Porky’s brother, which is how we got to know him in the first place. Ronnie said my mom couldn’t put a spell on him, and he said it loud enough that he caught the attention of everyone there that night. I even heard it from my bedroom. I sat up, trying to hear better. There was some murmuring which I couldn’t quite make out. Then Ronnie spoke up again, not quite as loud as the first time, and said he didn’t believe my mom could do it. More murmuring, so I go to the top of the stairs where I can hear better. All I can really make out is the faint sound of people’s voices. Then it got so quiet that I couldn’t really hear anything except for the shuffling of feet and my mom’s nearly imperceptible whisper. Judy-O was telling everyone what was about to happen as she explained the difference between a curse and a hex.

Suddenly, one of the younger girls rounded the corner and was coming up the stairs as fast as she could. I ducked into the kitchen, thinking she was probably going to the bathroom, but she came straight for me and blurted out, “Your mom needs a dry bay leaf and some black yarn!” I looked at her like I didn’t know English, then she quickly repeated herself, but much louder. I pointed to my mom’s spice cabinet and told her the bay leaves were in there, then I trotted off to the den to find my mom’s craft basket, where she kept her crocheting supplies.

I quickly returned with a spool of black yarn, and she cut off a strand. Standing there holding up a bay leaf in one hand and a piece of black yarn in the other, she just looked at me, amused. Then she asked if I knew her name. I blushed because I didn’t and was embarrassed. She smiled and said her name was Cheryl. I wanted to say something back, but I was too flustered. In those days, this was how I usually was around older girls. Those types of females were a conundrum to me, and I never felt like I knew what to say due to being so shy and gawky.

Cheryl departed with the yarn and bay leaf, but not before kissing me on the cheek, barely catching the corner of my mouth with her lips. It also caught me off guard since I didn’t see it coming. Before I could say or do anything else, she turned and headed for the stairs.

As she bounded down the steps, I asked her why she needed the leaf and a piece of yarn. She looked back up at me from underneath the Lover’s Hideaway sign directly over her head and said my mom needed them to cast a bad luck hex on Ronnie. Then she disappeared around the corner and into the haze emanating from my parents’ basement.

The party continued, and I decided I’d listened to enough seances and heard enough incantations, so I went outside. While I wouldn’t have minded seeing Cheryl one more time, I was also intimidated by her and knew I’d probably be at a loss for words. So I laid down on our carport, looking up at the stars. I was at a stage of my life where I was beginning to understand the differences between boys and girls, or more importantly, the differences between men and women. I’d seen enough pictures in those Playboy magazines my parents left lying around to understand the obvious differences, but I was beginning to get a first-hand glimpse of women’s ways and how they could use their charm to get what they wanted. Those subtle nuances in their sexuality were beguiling to me. I saw it in some of the girls at school and the older girls in our neighborhood, and I experienced it with young ladies like Cheryl. I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like if I dared to flirt back with one of them to see what might happen next, but I never did - too embarrassed, too self-conscious, too gauche. That didn’t stop me from thinking about Cheryl as I lay there studying the constellations in the night sky. I also wondered what she might have been thinking about when she decided to give me that innocuous kiss.

Later in the evening, after the black magic was winding down and the music went back up, I could hear more people laughing and having a good time. A few of them left and made the trek to their cars. They were mostly the couples who probably had babysitters to relieve.

From our carport, I also noticed my bedroom lights go on from time to time, then off. I presumed some of the partygoers had to use my bathroom, which was fine. This probably happened a half-dozen times as I sat out there on our carport, waiting. After a while, the lights stopped going on and off in my room, and a few more guests had left. I even noticed the music coming from my parents’ jukebox wasn’t as loud, so I figured the party was winding down.

It was close to midnight, and I decided to take a chance and head back to my room. I was thinking it would be nice to sleep in my own bed. I walked through the front door and could tell there was nobody in the kitchen. As I walked towards my room, past the open door that led down to the Lover’s Hideaway, I noticed it was eerily quiet. I looked down the stairwell and detected the purple glow of our black lights and, of course, the smoke. I paused for a second and heard nothing but whispers and a humming noise that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. Whatever was happening down there, the remaining partygoers were engrossed enough in the festivities to keep it quiet. Not exactly what I expected, but I should at least have no problem going to sleep as I headed down to the far end of the hall towards my bedroom.

When I walked into my room, the first thing I noticed was that my bedspread was crumpled. Then I noticed my bathroom door was closed with a light coming from the threshold. That’s when I heard giggling from more than one female voice, and I immediately realized there were girls in my bathroom. I froze, not sure what to do. Before I could dip out, the door opened and Cheryl and two other girls poured out of the fog that had filled my tiny half-bath. They were all wearing next to nothing as I stood there, bewildered. Cheryl, the first one out of my bathroom, saw me and grinned playfully as she ambled by. She didn’t say a word as the three of them paraded towards the hallway. There was an unmistakable aroma that followed them from my bathroom. It was the same scent as the lazy smoke that wafted up our stairwell, kind of pungent, kind of sweet.

I followed them, confused, as they turned down the hallway towards the stairs. Impulsively and naïvely, I asked where they were going. Without looking back, I heard one of them say, “Wouldn’t you like to know,” as they disappeared into the violet abyss of the Lover’s Hideaway.

Several days after the party, I heard someone banging on our front door late in the afternoon. It was Ronnie, Porky’s brother. He barged in before I could say anything and excitedly asked, “Where’s your mom?!”

I was going to tell him she was in the kitchen, but he bolted past me, and I heard him say, “Judy, you’ve gotta take this curse off me!”

My mom and Ronnie discussed this for a moment, then they both went downstairs to where my mom had moved all her occult-related propaganda. She’d even painted a pentagram on the black and white dance floor. I listened from the stairwell as my mom walked Ronnie through what they needed to do to remove the hex. I could tell he was listening intently because I was too. About fifteen minutes later, Ronnie left and seemed to be satisfied. I only saw him a few more times after that, but he never again teased my mom about being a witch.

Later that same afternoon, my mom left to go run some errands and took my two younger brothers with her. I also realized my dad wouldn’t be home for a while. Since the recent incident with Ronnie was so fresh in my mind, I was curious about what my mom had done to mitigate his anxiety about witchcraft and black magic. This meant going downstairs and plundering around my parents’ belongings. Ever since the Halloween party, I’d been reluctant to take a chance on exploring their party room in our basement. But this time, my curiosity finally overcame my sense of good judgment, and I decided to push my luck, which ended up being a very bad idea.

The first thing I noticed about the Lover’s Hideaway was that it looked neat and orderly. The pillows were lining the walls along the dance floor, and there was only a faint hint of stale beer and cigarettes. The projector screen was nestled in the corner, with everything neatly stored and in place. The bar was also spotless and organized. The pool table was clean, with the balls and cues all located on the wall-mounted rack in the corner. My mom’s collection of books was all neatly displayed on some new shelves across from the dance floor. The jukebox sat there quietly, with its rotating turret loaded with an impressive collection of top forty hits from that era.

Nothing seemed peculiar until I looked behind the bar. That’s when I noticed the 8mm projector again. I also noticed some reels of film, neatly stacked. The individual reels each had a label with what must have been the titles. There was one called The Convicts and another one that said Beyond Erotica. I saw one titled Teenage Innocence, then another that said Naughty Wives. I was beginning to think I’d figured out why my parents didn’t want me coming downstairs during their parties.

When I put the reels of film away, I happened to notice a stack of Polaroid pictures tucked away in the darkest recesses of the bar. I knew my dad had a Polaroid instant camera. This was the kind where you had to shake the picture once it ejected from the front, after pressing the exposure button. Then you pulled off the backing to reveal a picture as it slowly developed before your eyes. As those chemicals dried, the photo’s individual image would come into focus.

I picked up the stack of photographs and started rummaging through them one by one. I immediately noticed they were all pictures of the guests from my parents’ most recent party. Chunk, Porky, and Diane were in quite a few, along with dozens of others I recognized, including my mom. They all had drinks in hand and looked like they were having a great time. Then I noticed one where a girl had pulled her halter top to the side to proudly expose herself to my dad’s camera while holding up a celebratory drink with her other hand. Now I’m rifling through the Polaroids more rapidly, curious as to what else I might see. Cheryl might be in one for all I knew.

Sure enough, there are photographs of their party guests hanging out and dancing. Most of them were wearing little to nothing. In some of the pics, there are people I recognize in romantic embraces that were very suggestive and alluring. I also realized the only person not in any of the photos was my dad, which meant he probably took every picture.

I was only a few pics from the bottom of the stack when I got to the one that made me wish I hadn’t gone down to the Lover’s Hideaway that ill-omened day. By that point, I was confident I finally knew why my parents told me and my brothers we could never, ever venture down into their basement once the parties began. However, I wasn’t ready for what I saw next.

I eventually got to a photograph of a couple, a man and a woman in a sexually explicit pose, completely naked. It left nothing to the imagination and is still etched indelibly in my psyche. It was a picture of my mom and another guy, and it was taken by my dad.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

Click here to listen to the next chapter (17: Mello Yello)

Despite my intuition about my mom’s choice of habits, I was still curious as to why my parents and their friends seemed to enjoy those vices so much. However, it would be another year before I would take my first drink of some booze I’d swiped from my ol’ man’s liquor cabinet. I’ve since learned that the regular consumption of alcohol slowly kills brain cells. But back then, it didn’t bother me since I was never in much of a hurry. While I do know I’ve gotten drunk and made a mess of more than a few things in my lifetime, in alcohol’s defense, I’ve done some equally dumb stuff while completely sober. These days, I really don’t drink much anymore and can easily go weeks or months without imbibing. Then I might enjoy a cold beer with a cheeseburger or a glass of wine to complement a delicious dinner.

Having said that, I’ve had some close friends say they couldn’t go a day without a boozy beverage. I realize what they’re effectively saying is they’re functioning alcoholics, that they have a physical addiction to some chemical. I’ve seen firsthand how deviant someone can become when they’re at the mercy of their drug-fueled demons. But back in ‘76, as the nation’s bicentennial celebration was winding down, my folks had become notorious partiers who invited their like-minded friends to stop by on Saturday evenings in their party room in our basement. By then, the size of those hoedowns had dwindled to a select few of the usual suspects, and they were almost always the same faces. I realized the music wasn’t as loud, and laughter wasn’t as long since the crowds had become smaller. I still noticed the same marijuana smoke wafting up the stairwell that separated the Lover’s Hideaway from the rest of my world, and I knew they kept a well-stocked bar. I could only imagine what was actually happening when the lights dimmed, although I wasn’t really wondering quite like I used to. I might’ve been so young as to be severely lacking regarding experience, wisdom, and discernment, but I had a good idea what was happening down there under the glow of those black lights. Regretfully, I’d seen picture proof, which was something I would never be able to forget.

Even with how anxious my home life caused me to feel, I’d made enough friends to keep afloat and avoid being a social exile, but it wasn’t without its pitfalls. Thanks to my reasonably good grades, I had been in a lot of classes with the more popular kids with whom I’d developed an increasing preoccupation. Something about my life back then made me long to be liked by those socialites whose well-to-do lives fascinated me so much. While I no longer felt ridiculed or belittled by them, there were those moments when I could detect some degree of insolence regarding my being in their presence. It stung a bit, but it wasn’t like I was crying myself to sleep.

By the time I became a freshman at Greer High School, home of the Yellow Jackets, I’d pretty much disregarded the Gene Lawrence story, dismissing those fascinating details as a lucid dream fabricated by my mom’s befuddled brain. It would be another couple of decades before my biological father’s name would resurface and cause me to wonder why things were the way they were.

On a positive note, I’d rapidly become a skateboarding aficionado and rode pretty much every day. Not only did I vibe with skateboardings counter-culture ethos, I also wanted to continue to get better so I could mimic those surf-inspired moves I saw in every edition of SkateBoarder magazine I could get my hands on. We still had the ping pong table ramp that had become my usual afternoon hang, provided the weather was pleasant. Thanks to the money I’d made cutting my grandparents’ grass on those summer weekends, I had upgraded my skateboard’s wheels and trucks again. That helped me to progress to the point where I could do a variety of freestyle tricks and was generally considered one of the better skateboarders in the local area, although there weren’t that many of us to begin with.

Due to my previous classroom performance, I was enrolled in advanced subjects as a high school freshman and didn’t struggle to make better-than-average grades. I managed to ace Science and Pre-algebra my freshman year. I had another handful of classes that required me to do a modest amount of homework, usually at the last minute. I did well in those classes, too. The only class I dreaded was English. For some reason, grammar was always difficult for me to grasp conceptually. It was also the only class that routinely required students to speak, usually to read some passage from a known work by a famous author, or maybe to read aloud a sentence we’d constructed as a part of a class exercise. Those occasions always triggered my glossophobia, which is something I eventually overcame much later in life because of a generous amount of something I like to call exposure therapy.

In an era before cable and the internet, only three TV stations were broadcasting to our black & white television set in ‘76. To fill the void, many of us teenagers listened to our local AM radio stations. I feel a modicum of sympathy for those too young to have grown up with tiny transistor radios glued to their ears, listening to their favorite disc jockeys playing the latest ‘top 40’ tunes over a crappy speaker the size of a copper penny. I recall going to bed and hiding my pocket-sized radio underneath the covers to not be caught listening when I should’ve been asleep. One of the fun things our local radio station did was conduct occasional call-in contests. From time to time, they would play some advertisement for a sponsor between songs, and then they’d “Take the fourteenth caller” to win a related prize. Many of us teens were at home hiding underneath the covers of our beds listening to these same radio programs, and would call in when these contests occurred. The prizes ranged from tickets to upcoming concerts to free desserts at local restaurants. I remember calling from the phone in my room, and it was almost always busy. Occasionally, it would ring and be answered, but only to be told by the deejay something like “Sorry, you’re the ninth caller. Try again.” However, one night at the beginning of my freshman year, the deejay did an ad for Mello Yello, the soft drink company. They followed that up by conducting another call-in contest for a Mello Yello t-shirt, so I grabbed my telephone and started dialing the number I’d long since memorized. It was busy the first few times I tried to get through. On my fourth try, it started ringing, and I got my hopes up since I’d never won anything in my life. It rang for so long I began to wonder. Finally, the deejay answered and told me I was the lucky fourteenth caller. He then proceeded to take my name and other information and told me I could come by during the station’s business hours to pick up my prize. Then, as was their custom, the deejay would eventually announce on-air who won the call-in contest by stating their name and location.

The next day at school, many of my friends congratulated me on winning the t-shirt because they’d heard my name on the same radio station. I felt famous. Some of my classmates, many of whom never spoke to me, were lauding my good fortune. It was kind of amazing to realize something as innocuous as a local radio station call-in contest could catapult my social standing into another gear.

However, I still had to go get my t-shirt, which meant getting my mom to make the thirty-minute drive to the radio station. That may not seem like a big deal, but an hour round-trip drive was asking a lot of my mom and her unreliable Chevy wagon. The ol’ Vega might have been good on gas, but it wasn’t the most dependable means of conveyance and had been giving my mom some problems. So I pleaded with my mother to drive me to the other side of Greenville County. Finally, she relented, and we planned to drive out there the next afternoon.

The following day, I got home from school as quickly as I could. While I was genuinely excited about getting this t-shirt, my mom was not. She thought it was a long way to drive for a free shirt when I already had plenty. The two of us still climbed into her Vega and took off in search of the four towers that would let us know we were close to WQOK’s headquarters.

For some reason, I’d presumed the radio station was a massive complex of buildings that housed state-of-the-art high-fidelity technologies. I figured those vacuum-tubed electronic apparatuses had the ostensive purpose of delivering the day’s top tunes to those tiny radio receivers scattered all over upstate South Carolina. I imagined there would be tons of people running around, maybe in white lab coats. There might even be an armed guard to keep groupies away since radio deejays were famous as far as I was concerned.

When I saw the radio towers hovering above the tree line in the distance, I started to get a bit nervous in anticipation. Then, as we turned off White Horse Road to drive up to the station, I could see the four antennas all in a row, jutting up behind a small white building not much bigger than our house in Greer. There were only a few places to park in front of the tiny radio station, and my mom pulled into the last available spot and went inside. I was somewhat dumbfounded that this was the radio station’s headquarters. I thought it was going to be something out of the pages of a magazine, yet it was this lowbrow, nondescript building with a bunch of antennas. My mom wasn’t in there very long and came back out in an obvious hurry, with my shirt in her hands. She got in her car and tossed my prize at me. As Judy-O backed out to head home, I held it up and admired it. It was perfect - pale yellow with a WQOK logo emblazoned across the top with the Mello Yello logo underneath.

Of course, I wore my new shirt to school the next day and got asked about it by people who normally didn’t give me the time of day. A year later, I would give that t-shirt to my girlfriend, Georgeanne. She’s still a good friend of mine, and a few years ago, I got to speak with her about that memory. Georgeanne said she held onto my old t-shirt until her own daughter began wearing it when she herself was a teenager. It made me happy to know Georgeanne even remembered that t-shirt and held onto it for as long as she did. That it got passed down to her daughter made it that much sweeter.

It’s truly fascinating how good friends from my past - confidants like Georgeanne - have become the personification of a shared experience. I only have a handful of people I’ve ever felt genuinely close to in spirit, but I can tell you some really good memories about each and every one.

I always feel profoundly blessed whenever my mind’s eye reflects on those moments-in-time that were spent with someone I truly cared about. All those memories are reminders that there’s always something for which to feel very, very grateful.

© 2026 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.

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