There is a group of ladies all of whom had graduated from
the same class at Rockingham High School back in the late
1950’s.  Now, in the beginning of their golden years, they all
meet once per week to play bridge.  Although none of them
had been a cheerleader or a majorette, they referred to
themselves as the “Rockettes.”  They all had at various
times in the past been individually to New York City to visit
the famous “Radio City Music Hall” and the world famous
dance troupe there called the “Rockettes.”  I think our
ladies’ name came from the “Rock” in Rockingham or the
High School mascot, the Rockets.  Does anyone remember
the “June Taylor Dancers” on the Jackie Gleason Show?  
They were the closest rivals to the Radio City Rockettes.  
Any way, our group meets every Tuesday night to socialize
and play bridge, mostly socialize.  They were Shirley, Aggie,
Joan and Beverly.  They had several substitute players
whenever one of the four regulars was unable to play for
such reasons as sickness or vacation.  However, this was
late September, and all our regulars were available.


They had decided several months before that on this the
last Tuesday in September, they would all tell an unusual
episode that had happened to them since they had all met
back at the old grammar school in the early 1950’s.  They
had all been transferred to LJ Bell Elementary School in
the spring of 1952 when the entire school literally paraded
from their old school to the new school.  Their story had to
involve Rockingham or at least Richmond County.  It also
had to be something of which the other three would be
completely unaware.  For example, they all knew about the
“Great Rockingham Oil Fire”, the “Great Pee Dee Flood”
and of all the State Championships their high school
football teams had won.  That is, each lady had to pick
something that was news to all the others.  It had to be
something unusual, but it had to be true and somehow
involve Rockingham or Rockingham people.


Now Shirley was a regal looking lady.  If someone had said
she was the Mayor’s wife or even the Governor’s wife, she
would look the part.  She was “Ms. Prim and Proper.”  She
doesn’t tolerate nonsense.  She was married just a couple
of years after graduation to a Rockingham businessman
about three years her senior.  They had two sons, one
daughter and ten grandchildren.  Her two sons worked
with their father at the business that had done well since
her husband had taken over from his father over twenty-
five years ago.  She wanted her husband to retire, and let
their sons run the business; however, he didn’t like the
idea of retiring.  He was also a bridge player and had
substituted on occasion when one of the regular ladies was
not able to play.   


Aggie, whose real name was Agnes, had been a
schoolteacher there in Rockingham.  She had attended the
old grammar school and L.J Bell, and then she taught there
for forty-three years.  She attended school at Women’s
College in Greensboro, now called UNCG or the University
of North Carolina at Greensboro where she majored in
(what else) elementary education.  She really loved
teaching and she loved her children.  She regrets having
retired.  She had never been married.  She was about as
nice a person you would ever meet.  She also regrets
having never been married, but she has reconciled herself
to that.  


Joan had also gone to Women’s College in Greensboro, but
she majored in business.  However back then, women were
still discriminated against in the workplace, and she had
difficulty finding work in business at any position other
than as a secretary.  She did work for about ten years as a
secretary in Charlotte, but then she started selling Real
Estate in Monroe where she had been successful in
creating and running her own firm.  She had married a
man from Monroe, and that is why she moved there.  She
had two children with him, but they have been divorced
now for about twenty years.  One of her children lives in
California and the other in Michigan.  She has five
grandchildren.  She doesn’t get to see her children and
grandchildren but once or twice per year.  After she
retired, she moved back to Rockingham to be with some of
her family who still lived there.  There was no need to stay
in Monroe with all her in-laws although they were nice to
her.


Our fourth and final lady was Beverly.  To say that she was
outspoken might be an understatement.  She had grown
up on a tobacco farm just west of Ellerbe.  She had three
older and three younger brothers.  They had a tendency to
treat her like “one of the gang” rather than a young lady.  
Her nearest female friend lived over a half mile away,
which also was the closest house to them.  She was always
trying to dispel her tomboy image.  She had four boys of her
own and seven grandchildren.  Her husband had died
about nine or ten years ago.  She was still quite active.  She
was always involved with something, usually church work,
but also any worthwhile civic, charitable or social activity.


Now bridge is a serious game.  It is an intellectual’s game.  
It is to card games like chess is to board games.  Although
they kept score each night they played, they didn’t keep
running totals.  Each lady thought she was the best bridge
player among the group.  So they did everything they could
(short of cheating) to win including reading books on the
subject by some of the masters.  There was a lot of
underlying competitiveness.  They were able to socialize
and concentrate on their game at the same time.  If you
follow all the established guidelines, even an average
person can be a fairly good bridge player.


It was now time to start their stories:


Shirley was to go first:  This happened back in the 1980’s.  
There was a joint school board and county commission’s
meeting in the auditorium at LJ Bell.  With a few
spectators, including my husband and myself, there might
have been as many as sixty people attending.  The problem
was that they had to have the meeting on Halloween night,
which was the only way to get that many people together at
the same time on such short notice. Seems like everybody
else knew better than to schedule anything on Halloween
night.  I think the subject was about a local supplement to
the state salary for schoolteachers.  While they were in the
meeting, someone came and let the air out of all their
tires.  I used to think it must have been some elementary
school students, but I later attributed it to high school boys
since it was done with such military precision.  No one saw
anyone or anything suspicious.    When the meeting was
over, the attendees soon discovered the prank.  Some were
a little angry since they had other places to go that night.  
Then, out of nowhere, coming up the road from the old Pee
Dee Mill # 1 was Jake who ran a Pure Oil gasoline service
station out on Fayetteville Road.  He just happened to have
a new air compressor in the back of his pickup truck.  
When he saw all these people in distress, he stopped to
inquire.  He said he normally charged five dollars for road
service, but he said he would only charge them one dollar
per car since he was already there.  He soon had everyone
on their way.  You know, they never did figure out who did
that mischief, but everyone sure was grateful to Jake.  I
don’t think that old station is there any more; in fact, I don’
t think they still have Pure Oil gasoline anymore.  Someone
must have bought the company.   


Aggie was next:  You know, ladies, I wish I had paid more
attention to getting married when I was young.  I did used
to like this young man named Bill, but he was attracted to
another young lady.  I was so heartbroken.  Then while I
was at Woman’s College, there were only women.  Now just
how our state fathers back then thought that was a good
idea is beyond me.  They put all the men in Chapel Hill and
Raleigh, and all the women in Greensboro.  The men were
over fifty to seventy-five miles away.  How’s a young lady to
deal with that?  Today they have coed dorms where they
put men and women on alternating floors of the same
dorm.  I couldn’t think of a very good story except for this
one.  I had a student once named Mary Lou.  She was later
married, and I also taught all four of her daughters over a
ten-year period.  Her daughters were named: “Mary
Catherine, Mary Anne, Mary Margaret and Mary Alice.  
They were all good students, but each of them insisted that
you call them by both names; they wouldn’t allow me to
just call them Mary.   Actually this worked out fairly well
for me since we usually had someone else named Mary in
the class.  I assume Mary Lou really liked her name,
especially her first name.                                          


Next was Joan:  This happened back during the Viet Nam
War in the late sixties.  My husband was a Captain in the
National Guard.  I felt fairly good about his situation since
they never did call up the Guard or the Reserves during
that war.  However, my husband was both patriotic and
ambitious.  The Army had a deal where any junior officer
who had just completed a year of duty in Viet Nam could
get an automatic promotion if he volunteer for another
year there.  Then they extended this offer to Reserve and
National Guard officers.  The Guard or Reserve officer
would receive a promotion if he volunteered for active duty
in the war zone.  Most of the Guard officers, but not my
husband, had already spent time in the war zone.  For my
husband, that meant he could spend two years in Nam, and
then return to Guard duty as a Lieutenant Colonel.  And
that is exactly what he did.  He retired from the Guard
many years later still a Lieutenant Colonel.  I remember as
I went with him to Charlotte Douglas airport for his first
trip over.  I remember he took an Eastern airliner to
California.  After we said our good byes, he left me at the
terminal.  As he was climbing the steps to the airplane, I
stated crying uncontrollably.  My mother offered me her
Kleenex, but I refused it since I didn’t want him to see me
crying.  That was a mighty lonely two years for me and the
kids.  He did get to come back to visit after one year.  But
when he returned after the full two years, he was a
changed man.  We just never could seem to get back to the
way things were before he left.


Last, but not least, was Beverly:  Once when I was in the
eleventh grade in high school, I asked one of my brothers
whether I was attractive or not.  His answer was that I was
“reasonably attractive.”  That’s something you should
never tell a girl!  I later asked an uncle the same question,
and he also retorted that I was “reasonably attractive.”  To
me, that meant that my suspicions were fulfilled, “I was
not attractive.”  So several of my high school friends (in the
same situation as myself) and I started talking about what
we should do about this.  My mother and my grandmother
had always preached to us that the best place to find a good
man was in church.  One of my friends said that a boy she
liked at her church had told her that he thought of her as a
sister since he had known her for such a long time
(meaning he’s not interested in dating her).  That’s another
thing you should never tell anyone, especially a young girl!  
So our group decided that we should visit each other’s
churches several times.  Then the host girl whose church
we were in could do the proper introductions to keep
everything socially correct.  I later found out that
“reasonably attractive” is all a girl ever needs.  Sometimes
with a little help with the right hairstyle, the right clothes,
maybe some light cosmetics and a good personality almost
any young girl has all she needs.  Men are human too, you
know.  Men between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five are
insane about women, and rarely act rationally in that
respect.  So all you have to do is just set back and let nature
take its course.   


One time when we were visiting over at the Pee Dee
Church, there was this young kid named Frank who was
probably all of twelve years old.  He would often come and
talk to us, but he was way too young.  He did have an older
brother that one of the girls liked.  Then one Sunday
morning before the service, another young man (of high
school age), Ralph who didn’t go to Rockingham High,
came over to talk to us.  In my head, I said “bingo”
(meaning this is what we were trying to accomplish).  
However, there must have been some “bad blood” (ill
feelings) between these two.  Ralph belittled Frank and
called him a “little squirt” and more or less drove him
away.  All of us girls thought Ralph was rude, but we were
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Then later
after the service was over, while many of us were still
standing around on the very large front steps of this
church, Frank somehow positioned himself behind Ralph
who was talking to us.  Then someone let fly a - I should
say, somebody “broke wind.”  My brothers would have
been proud.  Frank loudly exclaimed: “Ralph!” and then
quickly made his exit.  At the time Frank had everyone
convinced that Ralph was the perpetrator of this very
audible flatulence.  I later reasoned that Frank might have
been the culprit.  Ralph was caught by complete surprise.  
He seemed to not know what to do.  He was so extremely
embarrassed; his face blushed.  Then after a short time,
Ralph failed to show any maturity and started chasing poor
little Frank up Hamer Hill Road.  I heard him say as he left:
“You ain’t never going to leave this world alive.”   


Later, I was thinking that’s true about just about
everybody, isn’t it?  Nobody is going to leave this world
alive.  In fact, I think that’s an old Hank William’s song.  
We never did go back to that church.  I guess poor ole
Ralph is still chasing poor little Frank up and down that
hill.