Do you remember the old Sam Cooke song Working on the

Chain Gain? Moaning, groaning and working their life away. 

Back in the early 1950s most of the minor routine road

maintenance was done by the Chain Gang from the local

prison camp, which for Richmond County was located

appropriately on Prison Camp Road.  If you go west on old

highway 74, it was a mile or two beyond Five Points.  I think it

circles around and comes out on the north side of town on

highway 220.   At least once or twice per month, you would see

them working here and there around Rockingham.  Life on a

Chain Gang was realistically portrayed in the Paul Newman

movie Cool Hand Luke.   Most of the members were not

considered too dangerous, but they were not necessarily honor

grade either.  They always worked with one or two armed

guards.  Cool Hand Luke had been convicted of cutting tops off

municipal parking meters while intoxicated and attempted

escape.  A typical member might be there for not fulfilling his

responsibility of child-support; however, there were always a

few that were really bad dudes.  However, most violent or

dangerous felons would be sent to the State Penitentiary in

Raleigh.

 

My father was a religious man.  His family was almost all

Methodists, and when he married my mother in 1934, he

continued going to the Methodist Church for at least fifteen

years.  Sometime, circa 1950 he stopped going to the Pee Dee

Methodist Church and started going with my mother to the Pee

Dee Pentecostal Church just up the hill.  We children usually

went with our mother, but I remember some of the days at the

Methodist Church.

 

My father also belonged to a Christian Mens Fellowship group

in Rockingham.  There were about twenty-five members in this

group, none of which came from the Pentecostal Church.  So

they must have been Methodists or perhaps they were from

various Rockingham churches.  They met about twice a month

on Sunday afternoon in the second or third floor of a

downtown Rockingham building on top of a restaurant that

was one or two stores up from the old Saunders Laundry

diagonally across from the old bus station.  My father didn't

like to go anywhere himself, so he would ask his children who

wanted to go with him.  It seems I was the only adventurous

one of my siblings as I was always eager to go anywhere.  I

went to this location five or six times.  One reason I liked to go

was that my father did not require me to stay right with him.  I

was given freedom to roam around within reason as long as I

did not do anything I wasn't supposed to do or otherwise get in

trouble.  They mainly sang hymns, said their prayers and

occasionally one of them would speak; however, they never

had any preaching.  This supports my hypothesis that they

were interdenominational.  Usually I stayed between two and

three minutes to greet everyone; then I was ready to do my

roaming.  There were never any children there other than me. 

There was no air conditioning in most buildings back then. 

They did have a good building fan that required an open

window and at least an open transom, but this usually was an

open door.  It provided a good breeze.  I discovered another of

these rooms down the hall that was being readied for an

upcoming event.  It was on the same floor, but a good distance

from where my father and his friends were meeting.  The door

was open to provide a breeze; otherwise, they would have kept

the door closed.  My father's group started at 2 PM; these other

people must have started at 3 PM or later.  It looked like they

had some sort of beverage in brown bottles on ice.  Also, they

seemed to have several small tables around suitable for

playing card games.  They wouldn't let me come in, but they

allowed me to stand at the door.  I never did figure out what

those other fellows were doing.

 

One Sunday per month, the Christian Men's Fellowship would

relocate to the Prison Camp.  They drove their own cars and

parked out front in the visitor's spaces.  Each one waited until

the entire group had assembled.  Then they went in together. 

This must have been before the family visiting hours as there

were no other visitors there.  One of the fellowship men had a

portable piano or organ that looked like the ones a rock band

might use today.  I don't remember if it required electricity to

play or not (it probably did).  They also brought a box of

religious songbooks.  The guards would take us to the mess

hall (cafeteria) before the convicts entered. Then when the

fellowship men were ready they would motion to one of the

guards.  Then the convicts would march in and set at the

tables.  They actually marched in single file, somewhat in a

military manner, but not in step.  This service was completely

voluntary for the convicts, but they usually filled the mess hall;

there could be as many as a hundred of them.  It was my duty

to pass out the hymnals.   I think that's why the fellowship men

tolerated me.  They never got close to any of the convicts, but I

had to get close enough to put the book in their hands.  I

waited until the convicts had left before I collected the

hymnals.  The service would begin with a prayer.  Next came

the singing.  Now those convicts could really sing, and sing

they did.  I was thinking at the time that many of them must

have grown up in churches just like I did because they didn't

teach music in prison camps, at least not back then.  They

might sing five or six songs mostly the old ones such as The

Old Rugged Cross.  Usually there was one or two of the

convicts that wore an ankle bracelet otherwise known as a ball

and chain.  I reasoned they must have been the runners, that

is, the ones who had previously attempted escape.  They scared

me, but I tried not to let it show.  They probably were not the

really dangerous ones.  The entire service took at most an

hour. There was no preaching as such; however, one of the

fellowship men might speak lightly after having read some

scripture.           

 

I think I did this at least ten times while I was in Rockingham,

between the ages of eight and twelve.  I don't think any of my

siblings ever went to the prison camp, but only because they

didn't want to go.  I still can't understand why they liked to

stay so close to home.  We didn't even have a television set

back then.