This event took place at Harrington Square in Rockingham
about 1952.  That makes me about ten years old at that time.  I
had gone with my father on his Sunshine Biscuit cracker route
that day.  On the way home he stopped at a small grocery store
beside the Strand Theatre; I think it was called Gibbs’ Grocery,
but I’m not positive about the name.  It must have been a
Saturday since this was mid-afternoon and my father was
finishing his day’s work a little early.   I was tired or maybe just
bored from the day’s trip and had elected to remain in the car
while my father made his business call in the store.  As you
come out of the Strand Theatre, looking left or to the east was a
shoe store which faced Washington Street, but had a side door
opening into Harrington Square near the old hardware store
there, which I think was called Hough’s Hardware.  Back near
the back of the hardware store is where the old Post Dispatch
ran it’s competitive newspaper to the Richmond County
Journal.  It was still around when we left in 1954, but I think it
was history by the 1960’s.  We were parked in a space, which is
still there today, facing the blank [west] side of this shoe store,
which itself faced opposite the front of the old Fox Drug Store
on Washington Street.  Both of these building have a large side
facing the Square.  Our parking place was about four places up
from the corner.

Then out of nowhere appeared a gentleman dressed as a
cavalier.  He was dressed in seventeenth century swashbuckling
clothing.  He looked like he was straight out of an Errol Flynn
movie.  His pants and jacket were mostly bright red with an
extremely fancy white shirt.  He had fancy lace on his collar, his
wrist and along his shirt buttons in front.  He had a scabbard
that might have contained a rather large sword hanging from a
large black belt around his midsection.  He had a flamboyant
hat to match.  His shinny black low cut boots had large brass
buckles on them.  This gentleman, who had a dark mustache to
match his dark hair, looked to be about thirty.  The next time
you watch a University of Virginia football or basketball game,
notice their mascot.  That gentleman is dressed as a cavalier,
but they have orange and blue in their school colors.  He
probably was not carrying a real sword, as that would have been
again the law.  I was aghast with curiosity.  I wanted to get out
of the car and ask that gentlemen who he was.  But about that
time my father came back from the grocery store and was in a
hurry to get on home for something.  Normally my father, who
did get a glimpse of the cavalier, would have been a good sport
and would have allowed me to go greet him.  So this event was
over just about as soon as it had started.  I first thought that this
might have been associated with the promotion of some movie
at the Strand Theatre; however, my father said he was selling
“Cavalier” brand cigarettes, and that he had seen him before
somewhere in his business travels in and around the six county
area centered in Rockingham.

“Cavalier” was the new brand of cigarette just introduced by R.
J. Reynolds Tobacco Company out of Winston-Salem, North
Carolina.  They also produced the market leader “Camel” brand
cigarette.  “Cavalier” was just a king-size “Camel”, both of which
were unfiltered back then.  It was about the time we moved to
Gastonia in 1954 that they introduced their filtered cigarettes
“Winton” and “Salem” (menthol).  Did you ever wonder how
they decided on the names for those two?  In Durham, we had
the American Tobacco Company, which produced “Lucky
Strike” and “Pall Mall” to compete with the “Camel” and the
“Cavalier”.  In Greensboro we had the P. Lorillard Company,
which produced “Old Gold”, “Chesterfield”, and their filter
cigarette “Marlboro”.  Note that Cheraw, South Carolina is in
Chesterfield County, and that Bennettsville, South Carolina is in
Marlboro County.  They didn’t have to go far to find names for
their new cigarettes.  I think the Philip Morris Company is in
Richmond, Virginia.  Rockingham and coastal North and South
Carolina are right in the middle of the tobacco producing areas.  
Back in the 1950’s, about two thirds of the American adult
population smoked; whereas, today that number is 21%
according to the Wall Street Journal.  Note that Carolina
tobacco is prized the world over, and that is why we still have
such sizeable exports.  In fact, I’d bet the exports might be
greater than the domestic consumption.

Back then, it was common knowledge that cigarettes were bad
for one’s health; however, the Tobacco Industry tried to
challenge this idea by saying that there was no proof of this
allegation.  They don’t say that any more.  Life Insurance
statistics today show that smoker’s have a least two hundred
percent mortality rates compared to non-smokers.  This means
that life expectancies tend to be at least fifteen years less for
long duration smokers.  The Pee Dee Church had a philosophy
about this, which I still don’t fully understand.  Their members
were allowed to produce tobacco products including farming
tobacco; however, it was sinful for them to use tobacco
products.  Rev. Stevens who was our minister from about 1950
to 1952 owned a tobacco farm in Chadbourn, North Carolina
near Whiteville.  He retired back to his farm when he left Pee
Dee.  Along about this time a young neighbor boy next door
introduced me to the art of smoking.  Both his parents smoked;
so it was easy for him to just help himself to one of theirs.  Of
course my chosen brand was “Cavalier”.  I never did inhale; so
after awhile, it didn’t take me long to realize I’d rather spend my
sparse change on cola drinks rather than on cigarettes.  
“Camels” and “Lucky Strikes” were sixteen cent for a pack of
twenty.  “Cavalier” and “Pall Mall” were seventeen cent.  Today,
a pack of Camels cost $2.89 at Food Lion; that’s an eighteen-fold
increase.  Most of this increase is due to higher taxes and
litigation settlements; inflation has been at most a seven-fold
increase.   There was very little cigarette tax back then
especially in North and South Carolina.  No storeowner back
then had any problem selling cigarettes to young children.  All
you had to do is tell them you were buying them for your
parents or even for a neighbor.  Some storeowners didn’t even
ask.  

Now just what is a cavalier?  The name makes me think on those
three (later four) Frenchmen that Alexander Dumas wrote
about in his book The Three Musketeers.  These guys went
about Paris trying to provoke sword fights in order to make
themselves famous swordsmen.  The name musketeer is
misleading in that it implies the use of muskets, but they only
used muskets in a war.  They carried only their swords as they
traveled the street of Paris.  In France, it seems the King’s
musketeers where always picking fights with Cardinal Richelieu’
s men; or maybe it was the other way around.  That’s a story
within itself; so I’ll save it until a later time.  The next time you
get a chance to view a movie of these characters, look at their
clothing.  That’s what a cavalier looked like; however, I think it
was only the English who referred to fighting gentlemen as
“cavaliers”.

Back in England, I think of Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis
Drake as the epitome of the cavalier.  In England, they didn’t
fight with each other so much like they did in France.  The
English mainly liked to torment the Spanish gold ships as they
left the Caribbean on their way back to Spain.  The successful
ones had to share one half their loot with the Crown (the King
or Queen).  Captain Hook from Peter Pan dressed like a
cavalier; however, he may have been more associated with the
“Dark Side of the Force.”  Some of these English cavaliers may
have turned into pirates once they realized that didn’t have to
share half their loot with the Crown.  Once they become pirates,
they no longer had to limit their victims to the Spanish gold
ships.