Old Hundred
written by Paul Warnock
It was one old those really cold and windy Saturdays in
Rockingham back in 1951. December 22nd to be exact. It
is extremely rare when it stays below the freezing mark
all day long in this part of the country; it probably doesn’t
happen but once or twice every five years. The weather
was perfectly clear that day with a beautiful azure sky.
Back in those days there were no jet contrails, which are
so common today. It had rained the previous day, but the
previous night was mostly windy, blowing out the fronts
and low-pressure centers which is how meteorologists
refer to dark clouds and rainy weather. I don’t know that
there is much otherwise special about December 22
unless it happens to be your birthday; it was just one day
after the winter solstice, which is another way of
describing the shortest day of the year and the first
official day of winter.
That year, I was in Miss Bobbie Long’s fourth grade; we
had classes in one of the Sunday School rooms of the First
Methodist Church due to an overflow from the main
school. Yes, it was due to kids like us that prompted the
city fathers to build the new L. J. Bell School to which our
class marched in cadence the following spring. We would
walk over to the main Grammar School for lunch and
assemblies, but otherwise we seemed to exist
independently. For example, I never saw the principal,
Miss Bessie Terry, at out detached location.
Now there was this certain young lady in my class I
befriended named Patricia (name changed to protect the
innocent); seems like we spent our romantic moments
together discussing the previous day’s “Howdy Doody”
show. By the way did you know Bob Keeshan who
portrayed “Clarabell” later played “Captain Kangaroo”?
Patricia seemed quite captivated when I told her what
happened at Old Hundred, but unlike my siblings she did
believe me.
My father was a Florida native, central Florida at that
(Oxford, near Ocala). Growing up in that part of the
country does not provide the necessary experience for
driving in North Carolina on days like that day. He
probably had never seen snow until he married my
mother who is from the mountains of North Carolina. My
family lived in Rockingham from 1940 until 1954;
however that was ample time for children number four
and five (me and my younger brother Jim) to be born
there. We lived on Sand Hill Road, which is now called
Caroline Street. We were just up the hill south of the old
railroad station. Going south, on the left, it is one house
short of the intersection of what is now called Midway
Road. Our winter heating system amounted to one coal
burning stove in the great room which also served as our
dinning room and den. All of us children would run from
our cold bedrooms to the great room to dress from our
pajamas to our school clothes, play clothes or Sunday
clothes as appropriate so as to be by the warm fire. Being
this was a Saturday, I was the only one of my siblings up
that morning when we left town; as I was going with my
father on one of his cracker routes which happened this
day to be down in Scotland County. His territory included
five or six counties in North Carolina to which
Rockingham was more or less central.
My father was a salesman for Sunshine Biscuit Company.
He would call on storekeepers and take their orders. The
delivery truck, which my father never saw, would bring
the crackers the next day. This arrangement worked well
as it gave a lot of personal interaction with the
storeowners and managers since the company was in
fierce competition with Nabisco. My father was very good
at what he did; he was one of a few top salesmen for
whom the Company furnished a new car every year. We
were in a new 1951 Ford that day; it was a leased Company
car, but you didn’t have to tell that to your friends (such
as Joel’s older brother Gary or cousins Bill & Jerry).
Old Hundred is a small junction where the Seaboard
Railroad track underpasses old Highway 74 in Scotland
County about three miles this side of Laurel Hill. There is
probably a little bit more to the town off the main road,
but all I remember is the railroad underpass and several
small grocery stores or perhaps I should say general
stores that also sold gasoline. In fact both of those store
were among my father’s accounts. I don’t think the train
made routine stops at this town. I assume the community
got its name from a locomotive (steam engine) that would
come down the tracks like clockwork. The town was in
close proximity to the tracks. All the trains at this time
were the old steam engines. The diesels were not
introduced to our area until the mid fifties. I can
remember seeing the last of the old steam engines as late
as the early sixties over in Raleigh. We used to
affectionately refer to them as “Choo Choos” because of
the rhythmic sounds they made as steam was expelled.
The steam engines had several cycles to it (intake,
exhaust, et cetera); reminds me of the cycles to the
human heart. Does anyone remember “Choo Choo”
Justice the football running back at the University of
North Carolina from back in the fifties? He evidently was
difficult to stop when he developed a full head of steam.
He was from Asheville, but had an insurance sales office
here in Greensboro before he died several years back.
Well folks let me tell you a word of wisdom. If you are
out on the highway at highway speeds in North Carolina,
and an ambulance passes you, and then you see a lot of
congestion at an upcoming bridge, you probably should
slow down as quickly as you safely can. Well my father
evidently was thinking he was in Florida and someone
had just spotted a wild alligator or something like that.
My Aunt Lucile told me about five years ago that she had
lived in Florida all her life, and she had never seen an
alligator in the wild. So I expect that sort of excitement
could have explain things in Florida, but Mother Nature
had left us a chilling reminder of her power up on that
bridge that day. We hit the bridge at about thirty five
miles per hour. We discovered this ice patch, and my
father lost control of this big, beautiful, maroon,
“Custom”, 1951 brand new Ford. They didn’t have seat
belts back in those days. My father held on to the steering
wheel, and somehow I managed to get to the floor. It all
happened in a couple of seconds; so I may be a little vague
on some the details. I think the list price of this car back
then was between two & three thousand dollars. The
manager at the Ford place in Rockingham (McGinnis
Motors if I remember correctly) offered the insurance
adjuster only six hundred dollars for it after they pulled it
all the way back to Rockingham. That probably didn’t
include the wrecker fee.
We were the second car to hit that ice and tumble over
the embankment within a short period of time. The
spectators said we had rolled over three times. Both my
father and I walked away from this. We both may have
had very minor cuts or bruises, but I don’t really
remember anything specific. We were both very thankful
for that. The first car was not so lucky as they were the
one for whom the ambulance was intended.
One of the spectators offered my father and me a ride
back to Rockingham. When I saw my brothers and sister,
they at first would not believe me. It was about ten in the
morning when we got back home; and they were still
setting around the stove as it was still very cold. It takes a
very long time to change from your pajamas into your
play clothes sometimes - especially on a cold Saturday.
By the way, Sunshine Biscuits replaced that car with a
white 1950 Ford; I assume it must have been one someone
else had returned back to the Company. I probably
accompanied my father a hundred times on his various
routes up until we moved to Gastonia in 1954. He passed
away in 1973, but I still like to reminisce about these
adventures with my father. I was nine and one half when
this event happened.
written by Paul Warnock
It was one old those really cold and windy Saturdays in
Rockingham back in 1951. December 22nd to be exact. It
is extremely rare when it stays below the freezing mark
all day long in this part of the country; it probably doesn’t
happen but once or twice every five years. The weather
was perfectly clear that day with a beautiful azure sky.
Back in those days there were no jet contrails, which are
so common today. It had rained the previous day, but the
previous night was mostly windy, blowing out the fronts
and low-pressure centers which is how meteorologists
refer to dark clouds and rainy weather. I don’t know that
there is much otherwise special about December 22
unless it happens to be your birthday; it was just one day
after the winter solstice, which is another way of
describing the shortest day of the year and the first
official day of winter.
That year, I was in Miss Bobbie Long’s fourth grade; we
had classes in one of the Sunday School rooms of the First
Methodist Church due to an overflow from the main
school. Yes, it was due to kids like us that prompted the
city fathers to build the new L. J. Bell School to which our
class marched in cadence the following spring. We would
walk over to the main Grammar School for lunch and
assemblies, but otherwise we seemed to exist
independently. For example, I never saw the principal,
Miss Bessie Terry, at out detached location.
Now there was this certain young lady in my class I
befriended named Patricia (name changed to protect the
innocent); seems like we spent our romantic moments
together discussing the previous day’s “Howdy Doody”
show. By the way did you know Bob Keeshan who
portrayed “Clarabell” later played “Captain Kangaroo”?
Patricia seemed quite captivated when I told her what
happened at Old Hundred, but unlike my siblings she did
believe me.
My father was a Florida native, central Florida at that
(Oxford, near Ocala). Growing up in that part of the
country does not provide the necessary experience for
driving in North Carolina on days like that day. He
probably had never seen snow until he married my
mother who is from the mountains of North Carolina. My
family lived in Rockingham from 1940 until 1954;
however that was ample time for children number four
and five (me and my younger brother Jim) to be born
there. We lived on Sand Hill Road, which is now called
Caroline Street. We were just up the hill south of the old
railroad station. Going south, on the left, it is one house
short of the intersection of what is now called Midway
Road. Our winter heating system amounted to one coal
burning stove in the great room which also served as our
dinning room and den. All of us children would run from
our cold bedrooms to the great room to dress from our
pajamas to our school clothes, play clothes or Sunday
clothes as appropriate so as to be by the warm fire. Being
this was a Saturday, I was the only one of my siblings up
that morning when we left town; as I was going with my
father on one of his cracker routes which happened this
day to be down in Scotland County. His territory included
five or six counties in North Carolina to which
Rockingham was more or less central.
My father was a salesman for Sunshine Biscuit Company.
He would call on storekeepers and take their orders. The
delivery truck, which my father never saw, would bring
the crackers the next day. This arrangement worked well
as it gave a lot of personal interaction with the
storeowners and managers since the company was in
fierce competition with Nabisco. My father was very good
at what he did; he was one of a few top salesmen for
whom the Company furnished a new car every year. We
were in a new 1951 Ford that day; it was a leased Company
car, but you didn’t have to tell that to your friends (such
as Joel’s older brother Gary or cousins Bill & Jerry).
Old Hundred is a small junction where the Seaboard
Railroad track underpasses old Highway 74 in Scotland
County about three miles this side of Laurel Hill. There is
probably a little bit more to the town off the main road,
but all I remember is the railroad underpass and several
small grocery stores or perhaps I should say general
stores that also sold gasoline. In fact both of those store
were among my father’s accounts. I don’t think the train
made routine stops at this town. I assume the community
got its name from a locomotive (steam engine) that would
come down the tracks like clockwork. The town was in
close proximity to the tracks. All the trains at this time
were the old steam engines. The diesels were not
introduced to our area until the mid fifties. I can
remember seeing the last of the old steam engines as late
as the early sixties over in Raleigh. We used to
affectionately refer to them as “Choo Choos” because of
the rhythmic sounds they made as steam was expelled.
The steam engines had several cycles to it (intake,
exhaust, et cetera); reminds me of the cycles to the
human heart. Does anyone remember “Choo Choo”
Justice the football running back at the University of
North Carolina from back in the fifties? He evidently was
difficult to stop when he developed a full head of steam.
He was from Asheville, but had an insurance sales office
here in Greensboro before he died several years back.
Well folks let me tell you a word of wisdom. If you are
out on the highway at highway speeds in North Carolina,
and an ambulance passes you, and then you see a lot of
congestion at an upcoming bridge, you probably should
slow down as quickly as you safely can. Well my father
evidently was thinking he was in Florida and someone
had just spotted a wild alligator or something like that.
My Aunt Lucile told me about five years ago that she had
lived in Florida all her life, and she had never seen an
alligator in the wild. So I expect that sort of excitement
could have explain things in Florida, but Mother Nature
had left us a chilling reminder of her power up on that
bridge that day. We hit the bridge at about thirty five
miles per hour. We discovered this ice patch, and my
father lost control of this big, beautiful, maroon,
“Custom”, 1951 brand new Ford. They didn’t have seat
belts back in those days. My father held on to the steering
wheel, and somehow I managed to get to the floor. It all
happened in a couple of seconds; so I may be a little vague
on some the details. I think the list price of this car back
then was between two & three thousand dollars. The
manager at the Ford place in Rockingham (McGinnis
Motors if I remember correctly) offered the insurance
adjuster only six hundred dollars for it after they pulled it
all the way back to Rockingham. That probably didn’t
include the wrecker fee.
We were the second car to hit that ice and tumble over
the embankment within a short period of time. The
spectators said we had rolled over three times. Both my
father and I walked away from this. We both may have
had very minor cuts or bruises, but I don’t really
remember anything specific. We were both very thankful
for that. The first car was not so lucky as they were the
one for whom the ambulance was intended.
One of the spectators offered my father and me a ride
back to Rockingham. When I saw my brothers and sister,
they at first would not believe me. It was about ten in the
morning when we got back home; and they were still
setting around the stove as it was still very cold. It takes a
very long time to change from your pajamas into your
play clothes sometimes - especially on a cold Saturday.
By the way, Sunshine Biscuits replaced that car with a
white 1950 Ford; I assume it must have been one someone
else had returned back to the Company. I probably
accompanied my father a hundred times on his various
routes up until we moved to Gastonia in 1954. He passed
away in 1973, but I still like to reminisce about these
adventures with my father. I was nine and one half when
this event happened.
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