Solly Looks Back
At Meeting St.

The store at 739 Meeting St. had no hot water. I remember being bathed in a big galvanized tub into which heated water was poured. It had an outhouse toilet, which had to be cleaned periodically.

Meeting St. was covered with pulverized oyster shells and was paved in the early 1920's. Electric trolley cars provided public transportation . The “car barn” was about six blocks south on Meeting St. From 739, the family moved to 743 which later became 753.

What was to become Mickey's room was at first a screened porch used in the summer time as a bedroom.

My room eventually added a desk and later served as my office when I was field secretary for District 5 AZA.

The exercise set which hung around the house for years was supposed to help me develop into another Charles Atlas.

Some of our neighbors:

The Painters, who kept the balls which went over the fence into their yard; the Andersons, whose son was a terror who eventually wound up in jail; the Batsons who operated an ESSO gas station; the Gazes, a Greek family on the SE corner of

Brigade and Meeting, whose son Peter became an outstanding cardiologist at the Medical University of South Carolina.

The neighborhood industries:

Fisher Lumber Company was on Brigade
St. . Its whistle regularly blew at 8:30, 12:00, and 4:30 (for the start of work, lunch, and quitting time). Mr. Sodke, also a neighbor on Meeting St. , operated a lathe at the company and make baseball bats for us.

North of the house, on Meeting St. , was the abattoir, a slaughter house from which emanated the most sickening odors.

Remembering the Store

The medicine cabinet at the east end of the store behind the counter. The metal cutting machine -- a long lever activated the blade to cut plugs of Brown Mule tobacco. The pressed metal ceiling. (I wonder if it's still there)