I'll admit it. South Carolina don't have much to it. I mean we got Myrtle Beach and South of the Border, but if you ask me, they ain't really even a part of South Carolina. They're mainly for Nartherners with a lot of money to spend. I heard that a beer in Myrtle Beach costs two and a half dollars. That don't sound like South Carolina to me. And my Momma never would take us up to South of the Border on account of she said that it was a shame that something her tax dollars paid for was so over-run by tourists.
We got tobacco and that ain't bad. My Grandad always told me that, in life, there ain't two things you can count on - death and taxes - but three: death, taxes, and tobacco. He used to tell me, "as long as there are people on this earth, they'll smoke and chew South Carolina tobacco." There's sumptin about our soil, he would tell me. Sumptin in that mixture of bogs and heat and afternoon downpours that makes for great tobacco.
The other thing we got that not a lot of other places do is Darlington International Speedway. It's one of the six racetracks that's original to the NASCAR circuit. Richard Petty was knee high to a Junebug when Darlington opened up. That place is living history. It's so old that they used to race Packards there.
People tend to look down on us South Caroliners, even though we got one of the oldest and most important NASCAR tracks in the country. Most Nartherners think we's backwards. And even our closest neighbors, our namesake and kin, the North Caroliners like to poke fun at us. They like to say that when North Caroliners in Lumberton flush their toilets, the mess inside goes right to Florence. I don't believe that myself. But I wouldn't know for sure.
What I think is really going on between the two Carolinas is just a little rivalry amongst friends. Take this for instance: we was the first state in the union to raise our state speed limit above the Federal fifty-five. Mister Senator Strom Thurman himself said that he thought it was a crime for his race-lovin citizens to drive through their state at so slow a speed. So he went ahead and tried to raise that speed limit, knowing full well that if it got raised we wouldn't get no more funding from the government to fix our roads. Well, needless to say, before you knew it, the boys from S.C.D.O.T. was hanging a big fat 6 overtop of the left 5 on all the speed limit signs on all the highways across the state.
Well wouldn't you know it! The very next day, the people up in North Carolina decided to one up us. They voted in Raleigh to change their speed limit to 70! Well, I have to admit that folks was angry down here. But I think that we was jealous mostly. Seventy mile an hour! We never imagined going that high. It really got some people down here bent outta shape, my Grandad for one. "They always go over our heads, don't they? First Charlotte, then this!"
Eventually he calmed down about the whole thing. I guess most South Caroliners over the years get used to being outdone by North Caroliners. We felt better once we started telling jokes about the 70 miles an hour. You see, by choosing seventy, those dumb bastards at N.C.D.O.T. couldn't hang sixes on the signs that was there already. They had to make all new ones. Some people down here thought that that was right funny, including Grandad. Eventually we all felt that a measly five mile an hour difference wasn't worth all them new signs.
Another thing that North Caroliners did a bunch of years back was build the Charlotte Superspeedway. It's a tremendous thing, three and a half miles around compared to Darlington's mile and a half. And it's got high banks and a whole mess of seats and it's even got lights on the track like a football field might so they can race at night. The boys from NASCAR get their Chevies and Fords and the occasional Pontiac up near two hundred miles an hour on that track. The fastest you might go at Darlington without killing yourself is barely a hundred. Grandad was mad when he heard about Charlotte. "Two hundred mile an hour?! They's liable to get someone killed going that fast! Darlington's tough, but no one's ever died there." When he said that, I knew for sure that he was just jealous again. Since when has he cared whether those racers lived or died?
But I tell you sumptin: in the first ever race at Charlotte my Grandad was proved right. About fifty laps in, Dick Trickle's front bumper nudged Ricky Rudd's rear bumper in the bottom of turn three, and knocked his rear end loose. His Tide Detergent Ford Thunderbird turned and took a quick look at the infield, then took a right turn toward the grandstand. They say he hit that wall head on at a hundred and fifty mile an hour. Ricky was ok, just a handful of broken bones, but in that collision, his carburetor was shot like a bullet from a gun and it ripped through the Tide logo painted on the hood, leaped over the protective fencing, and killed a man from Beaufort sitting in the thirteenth row. My Grandad's been right about a lot of things in his life, but we never thought he was a psychic.
We was all sad about the man from Beaufort. We always got our Fourth of July crabs from a man on the side of the road in Beaufort. We wondered if that was him, the guy who got knocked on the head with Ricky Rudd's carburetor. My Grandad said that he hoped it wasn't, cuz that man sold the cheapest, fattest crabs year in, year out of anyone from Savannah to Baltimore. Like I said, my Grandad was upset about the guy who died, but he did let it be known that he thought it was God's work. "It serves him right. Any man who goes to see a race at that God-forsaken track--especially a man from Beaufort--is riskin the rapture."
My Grandad, for a man who never finished the 4th grade, sure was a smart son-of-a-gun. He taught himself to read and write by the time he was fifteen. He grew up in Columbia, where he met and married my Nana, who born my Momma into this world in 1960. My Grandad worked at a paper mill for twenty-two years, helping shove trees into a giant tub where they got boiled. Nana used to say that he came home from work everyday smelling like pine tree stew. I don't reckon I know what that smells like.
I wasn't born in Columbia. I was born just south of South of the Border in Dillon, South Carolina. By the time I was hatched, Grandad had saved enough money to buy two hundred acres of prime farmland. He grew tobacco there the old-fashioned way: no tractors or mechanical plows. Them big machines is great for planting fast and harvesting fast, but they're so heavy that they compact the soil over the years and don't leave no place for the tobacco root to grow. Grandad used oxes and an old plow to break the ground, bought fifty tons of cow shit every year from the cattle farm up the road, filled an old wooden wagon with it, and shoveled it off the back onto the field. Then he plowed the whole thing again. He planted the tobacco seeds, one every foot, in every row across his two hundred acres. And as if that wasn't enough, he took the better part of June every year setting up a shading screen on posts. A shading screen is a thin fabric, somewhat like a cheap thin burlap that protects the plants from getting too much sun. It also protects the plants when they're young from getting hurt by heavy rain. Grandad used to say that God blessed South Carolina with sun. He also said that it is possible for God to bless us a little too much from time to time. He told me, "God won't take no offense to my shading screens."
Because of the care that he took with his field, Grandad grew a special kind of tobacco, one that he would never sell to R.J. Reynolds. His tobacco was so thick and sweet that he sold it to a company in Germany called Dunhill that sold their cigarettes for seven dollars a pack. Imagine that! My Grandad made a pretty penny off them Germans. His friends used to make fun of him, telling him that he was selling tobacco to the Nazis. But Grandad never took no offense. He would laugh and tell them "those Germans, for all their faults, really ain't that bad." He never really met an official German, just an American who worked for their cigarette company. But he stood up for them anyhow.
Tobacco made Grandad his living for some twenty-four years. And he made a profit every one of them years he planted. When he passed on in the Winter of '96, he had enough money saved up so that I would never have to work in the factories or in the fields like he did. And that was alright with me. I mean, I loved my Grandad - he was like a daddy to me since I never did have a real daddy - but I never once thought of myself as a farmer like him.
When Grandad died, it was from a cancer in his lungs. The doctors thought it was from smokin, but Grandad swore it wasn't. "I got bad lungs from all them chemicals we used to use to strip the bark off them pine trees," he told me. I believed him even though I know I shouldn't of. He smoked two packs a day, unfiltered. I figured it didn't matter whether I believed him or not. It only mattered whether he believed that I believed him. So I did and then I didn't worry about it no more.
When we was with Grandad in
the hospital, we knew he was hurt but he didn't say nothin and
so we didn't say nothin. On his second to last day alive he told
my Momma and my Nana to leave the room so he could talk to me
alone. He asked me "D'you know who your Daddy is?"
"You told me he died in a
grain silo right after I was borned."
"I did tell you that. But
that ain't the truth."
"What's the truth then?"
I asked.
"You know how your Momma says
all them things about Dwight Wilson, about how she hates him and
all?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"And you know how she won't
ever buy a Ford and won't even ride in one unless she has to?"
"Yes sir."
"And you know how you wasn't
allowed to drink Coke when you was a kid, only Pepsi, and how
you weren't allowed no Snickers, or Pringles, and you wasn't allowed
root for Dwight Wilson or any of his teammates? And how she wouldn't
never stop at a Mobil or Shoney's?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"Son, I swore to your Momma
that I'd never tell you this truth but I been layin here thinkin
and I know its my time and I don't think it's right to let you
go on livin your life without knowin who your daddy really is."
"My Daddy's Dwight Wilson?"
"Yes Son, your Daddy's Dwight
Wilson.."
"Dwight Wilson?!"
"Yes son. Number 68 himself"
"But he's from Conover. Momma's
never been to outta state."
My Grandad spent his last hours telling me how when Dwight Wilson was racin' sprint cars up in Darlington some eighteen years ago, my Momma got to watchin him and rootin for him. She used to go to his Saturday night races and cheer like hell. Grandad said that one night, about nine months before I was borned, my Momma snuck down onto the infield after a race and got herself into Dwight Wilson's trailer. By the time I was hatched he was racin up in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. My Momma wrote letters but by the time they got to Camp Hill, Dwight Wilson was in Louden, New Hampshire, then San Antonio Texas, then Homestead, Florida, then Sacremento, California. No letters ever did come back. My Grandad told me, "you don't want no Daddy that don't want no part of you. And besides, he's so busy goin' round in circles that he ain't gonna provide you no real direction anyhow."
Like I said, my Grandad passed the next day. I was sad, but I didn't let him know that I was cuz I figured he wouldn't of wanted me to. Me and my Momma and my Nana didn't want the farm no more, so we sold it off to a farmer next door and the three of us bought ourselves a house with a concrete crawlspace ten miles up the road. We wasn't so rich that my Momma could quit her job up at the Publix, but she said that she wanted to do something good with some of the money we ran into, so she got us Primestar and a new Monte Carlo and told me that I could take classes over at the community college if I wanted to.
I did start takin classes shortly thereafter. I was gonna learn howda program computers and make web-pages and such and at first I was real excited. But I found out quick that I don't like computers. They's harder to understand than women and they's more boring than farmwork. And anyhow, I couldn't concentrate on what they was teachin me cuz I couldn't stop thinkin about Grandad and what he told me about Dwight Wilson. It ain't right for a man to find out so far into his life that half of him comes from a famous and rich race car driver, and one from North Carolina to boot! I thought about it all the time. Even when I was goin to class, I found myself drivin real fast and thinkin about Dwight Wilson. And every turn I took I wondered if he mighta took it the same way I did.
The 4th of July after Grandad died, me and my Momma and my Nana was watchin the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte. Momma was rootin for Jeff Gordon as usual and Nana for Kyle Petty and I was sposed to be rootin for Dale Earnhardt but I found myself fixed on Dwight Wilson instead. He was half a lap in front with sixteen laps to go and my Momma threw her pillow at the TV and turned it off. I told her to turn it back on so I could see Dwight Wilson win and she didn't say nothin other than that I should go start a fire so we could cook the crabs. Nana backed her up and, even though I was upset, I didn't say nothin more.
A couple a weeks later, the boys from NASCAR was gonna make one of their two annual stops at Darlington. We tried to get tickets but they was too expensive and Momma said she didn't like how loud races were anymore anyhow. So we went out to fan appreciation day instead. I stood in line for an hour and a half just to see Dwight Wilson's Kentucky Fried Chicken Ford Thunderbird and get an autograph from Dwight Wilson himself. When I got to the front, I took out my event pamphlet and told him to sign his autograph on it. He asked me if I wanted him to make it out to anybody and I said "Yes. To your son. Me."
Well, you shoulda seen the look on his face when I said that! I didn't want to make a ruckus and I knew there was a whole mess of people behind me waiting to get their hats and T-shirts signed and whatnot but I was so nervous and so angry at the same time that I just about threw up on the hood of Dwight Wilson's Thunderbird. I said, "You're my Daddy. You and my Momma took a roll in the hay inside your trailer right here in Darlington about nineteen years ago. You're my Father."
I got drug away by security guys wearing yellow shirts. But before they took me, I saw his mustache quiver and I looked at his eyes and I knew that he knew I was tellin the truth.
I know it ain't right, but I was happy when he came outta turn two too fast and caught the wall the next day. They say that Darlington is the track that's "too tough to tame." It sure was for Dwight Wilson that day. In fact, he never has won at Darlington. He's won Daytona and the Brickyard, Texas, California, Pocono, Charlotte, and Dover, Michigan, Watkins Glen, and Vegas but he's never even finished in the top five at Darlington. Momma says there's a curse on him, being that he's from North Carolina and all, but I know what she really means.
I spent the next couple of months after my run in with my real Daddy cooped up in our new house. I quit going to my classes. I sat around and watched races. But as time wore on, the strangest thing started happenin. I found myself flippin away from perfectly good races to TBS to see how the Braves was doing. I was watching less and less laps and more and more innings. And then, by September, I was able to sit through an entire baseball game. I started even watching the pre-game and the national anthem and all. When Dwight Wilson and all his NASCAR buddies came through Darlington again, this time for the Goody's Headache Powder 300, I didn't even turn it on! Instead, I watched Greg Maddux and the Braves beat up on the Philadelphia Phillies.
As I'm sure you've gathered from all this, my Momma and my Nana was worried sick about me that whole summer. They thought that I was going crazy or sumptin. I knew nothing was wrong really, just that I missed Grandad a lot.
When I was a boy, Grandad wouldn't build me a go-cart like all my friends had. He taught me baseball instead. It wasn't until he died that I remembered how he used to take me out into the backyard in the summer evenings and pitch me a tennis ball. He had me swinging this old bat a his that was almost as big as I was. And I remember now how I wasn't no good at hitting that ball, being that I could barely swing that bat around, but he used to pitch to me anyhow. And he would pitch to me til it was too dark to see the ball. I used to say to him, "Grandad! This bat's too heavy," and he'd say back, "don't worry son, you'll grow into it. Keep your eye on the ball now kid-o." And then he'd start calling to me while he pitched, "Hey batta batta batta, hey batta batta batta, swing batta!"
I got to thinking about this right after Andres Galaraga hit a double and I started crying. Not so much about Grandad being gone as wasting all that time watching those cars go round in circles. I never realized it until that moment, but NASCAR ain't nothing to teach your son. Those dumb sons-a-bitches drive 500 miles and end up just where they started. What a stupid thing to teach a boy. I cried for the whole state of South Carolina that afternoon.