Prologue

“Strike three!”

I heard the umpire yell as I watched the final pitch of my baseball career go by. After spending four years playing at the Division 2 level, I transferred to Clemson University as a graduate transfer for one more year on the diamond, mostly to have my master’s degree paid for and partly to have one more season of doing what I loved. The goal had always been to play pro ball, but I realized shortly after my freshman year that, as good as I was in high school, college baseball was a whole different beast. In my final season with the Tigers, I managed to earn thirty total at-bats, with two starts and some pinch-hitting opportunities and hit a whopping .210, all hits being singles. It wasn’t the career I had hoped for but, like I said, it kept me in the game for one more year and that was good enough for me.

At twenty-three I was done with baseball and school.  I just spent the last five years playing baseball, earning a BS in Science from North Greenville University and master’s degree in athletic leadership at Clemson University. I made the decision in my last semester to make the move to the coast of South Carolina after graduation, rather than returning to my hometown of Gilbert, where my family still lived. Not the easiest decision, considering how close I was to my family, and one that took a lot of thought and discussion with my folks and sister. Gilbert was home; I grew up there; it was comfortable. However, I wanted a clean slate and not have the crutch of falling back on my parents for help anytime things got tough. I wanted to be my own person and live my own life.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, we have always been close, but this was something I felt I needed to do, call it an innate sense of becoming a man. My dad, Jackson Sr., everyone called him Jack, had been with the same company selling lawn equipment for the past thirty-four years. My mom, Janice, started out as a nurse in the local hospital but didn’t like the idea of being away from my sister and me for so many hours out of the day.  She made the difficult financial decision to quit, opting for a lower paying job with an in-home health care company as a nurse. This allowed her the flexibility to be more active in our school and extracurricular activities. Both were excellent parents. My sister and I grew up in a home with love, happiness, and the freedom to be who we wanted to be, in many ways this is what prepared me for the life I wanted to have.

The holidays were always particularly special. Mom would always make us the center of Christmas. The tree was the same every year, a real Virginia Pine. It was always decorated with little trinkets from our lives, and we were never left wanting after all the chaos of Christmas morning.

Dad made sure Mom was equally spoiled, countless gifts under the tree for her from him, with cheesy little nicknames they gave each other. Birthdays were no different, all of us knew we were loved and appreciated by each other.

Growing up, I was a decent athlete, playing football and baseball in high school. The whole time Mom and Dad were there, every game, watching and cheering me on, sometimes to my embarrassment.

There is one game that stands out, primarily from the embarrassment of them being a little too excited. I stepped up to the plate vs CA Johnson and hit the first homer of my high school career; it was exciting. In my first at bat of the next game, I ripped another homer to straight away right vs Calhoun County and was feeling confident. Later in the game, maybe my third plate appearance, I smoked one to dead center. As I rounded second, I could hear my mom yelling at the top of her lungs, “You’re the man!” on repeat.

At the time I wanted to just keep on running out of the stadium and straight onto the bus to hide, but looking back now I appreciate the support they showed.

Back to the present. My sister, Marie, had just completed her freshman year at Anderson University. She and I had always had a typical brother-sister relationship, developing more into friendship, growing closer the older we got.

At the first of the school year, Marie had what can only be described as a panic attack. My guess would be from dealing with all the stress of being away from home for the first time and starting the whole new life they call freshman year. In the middle of the night, she got in her car and drove to a vacant parking lot, refusing to move, panic taking control of her senses.

At about 1 AM I got a call from my mom telling me that Marie was freaking out, and they didn’t know what to do. I was at my apartment in Clemson at the time, only a half an hour away, whereas my parents were two hours away coupled with the fact they had just dropped her off earlier that same day.

I knew all too well the anxiety she must have been feeling, having been a freshman just four years prior. My older brother instincts went into overdrive. We left her car in the parking lot after I picked her up.  The next few days she stayed with me and my roommate at our apartment. I use the term “apartment” loosely. It was a single wide, thirty-year-old, brown trailer that rented cheap, with the smell of mothballs overwhelming the senses. Anyway, I always felt that was when our relationship went from being just brother and sister, to something deeper.

Moving onto this next chapter of my life, I knew I had the support of my family. That or they just wanted to have a place to stay at the beach whenever they wanted. Either way, I was and have always been blessed to have a great family, maybe that will shed some light onto why I make some of the choices that will map the rest of my life, when faced with unspeakable tragedy.

Chapter One

Graduation came in a flash, culminating with accepting a job teaching science in Aynor, South Carolina. There was also the caveat of coaching volleyball. I have never played volleyball thus knew little about the rules, nonetheless, I wanted to coach.  With football and baseball not being available, volleyball it would be.

Aynor is the kind of small town you see in movies when they really want to drive home the “small town” point. The whole town is just under two square miles with one grocery store, three-gun shops, a McDonalds, a few local restaurants, and a population of 984 people that patron the local eateries and shops.

The town, its families, and its history are entrenched in tobacco and cotton farming. Everyone talks with a slow, southern drawl that is more prevalent in Aynor than other areas of South Carolina.

It is one of those towns where everyone is related somehow. Names like Richardson, Johnson, and Carrol populate the phone book and monopolize the farming history of the town. On Sunday mornings, good luck finding anyone at home as they fill the local Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches around downtown, and after church everyone gathers for family lunch at their grandparent’s house.

Just like my own personal history, family is the center of everyone’s lives. The local gathering place each Friday night is the football stadium where the locals show up to cheer on their kin and their beloved Blue Jackets, just like it has been for a hundred years. Lost in the small-town feel, is some of the most scenic views around and, being this close to the beach, that is saying something. Driving through endless acres of farmland, the skies at sunrise are something to behold; the oranges, yellows and purples paint a breath-taking picture of unseen parts of the low country of South Carolina.

Rather than live in Aynor, I chose to plant my roots in Conway, SC, to keep things professional. One of my mentors in education told me there is nothing more rewarding than having a student approach you in a store and introduce you to his parents, and there is nothing more awkward than seeing that same kid in a restaurant on a date or when having a beer. These magical words of wisdom are why I chose to live about fifteen miles southeast of Aynor, in Conway. Unlike most single people my age, I made the decision to go ahead and buy a house rather than rent an apartment. I knew this was where I wanted to be and, for a long time. I had a little bit of money saved up, so it was really a no brainer.

House shopping didn’t take long. I narrowed it down to two houses. One was newer and had a few more items in the house that met my needs, but it sat on a smaller lot and the other had a big backyard with a pool, and seeing as how I loved to be outside, I pulled the trigger on the second. It was a nice three-bedroom two bath house just outside of the downtown area. My plans to eventually have a family aided in my selection knowing that I wanted ample space for kids to run around, and the pool just added to the outdoor oasis sitting just outside the back door.

Another benefit is its proximity to the beach and the endless supply of investment and vacation properties. I had invested some high school graduation money, along with some of my college graduation money, and some savings throughout college in crypto a few years before. It did well, so I talked the rest of the family into investing in a condo in Cherry Grove Beach. The plan was for it to make us some money for later in life and use on weekends when it was vacant. I’ll get more into that later.

Conway is perched along the Waccamaw river, and though it is much bigger than Aynor, with a population of just over twenty-five thousand, it too has a rich and interesting history. It sits twenty miles inland from the Grand Strand, the sixty miles of beaches from the northernmost tip of SC to Georgetown, SC.

There is a beautiful area along the river called The Riverwalk that gives locals and travelers a place to get outside and enjoy the scenery Conway has to offer. The downtown area is filled with little Christmas shops, which are open year-round, a general store, bistros, and a barbecue joint right on the river, all married together to give the town a warm and welcoming feeling to anyone looking to stop on their way to the beach or someone looking to settle down.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the downtown area is the City Hall Building, which was designed by Robert Mills of Charleston, South Carolina, the same architect who designed the Washington Monument and was the protégé of James Hoban, who was one of the key players in the design of the White House.

For me, Conway was always a drive through town to get from our home in Gilbert to the beach, but now it was home. It was the next step in my life, and the starting point of the blank canvas that lies ahead.

My first night in my new house was the last night of July. I loved summer nights in South Carolina, minus the mosquitoes. The smells of tea tree blooms, the songs of the Cicada that provide the soundtrack for a hot humid night, a warm breeze. Everything about it played in the nostalgia of my growing up. Earlier, I visited the Food Lion to get some necessities for the next few days, and being the first night in my own house, I had to have some beer to celebrate. In college my go to was PBR. My buddies and I would always add a lime to it giving it the taste of a poor man’s Corona, we even had our favorite bar name it the Clemson Corona. I also had a second reason for the PBR, I had just put most of my money into this house and so my beer budget, like in college, was lacking, and PBR is about as cheap as it comes, so the Clemson Corona it was.

I sat by my pool, it was a beautiful evening, sipping on my beer, lost in thought. The sun sets over the woods in my backyard, the oranges, yellows, and purples painting the sky. It was beautiful. The first feelings of adulthood creeping upon me, I was proud, and I was excited to see what the future held. For now, I was going to enjoy the tranquility that is dusk in the Carolinas, for as long as I could.