10/21/07
I left the Cheraw Jazz Festival and hoped to make it to a small town called Patrick, 10 miles from Cheraw, before calling it a day. Five miles down the road, after sweating my way over hills that would have been best tackled in the morning and not the late afternoon, I stopped at small grocery store to rest and get some water.
An older man sipping coffee from a small styrofoam cup started asking me questions about the ride and, after five minutes or so, offered to let me camp on his property for the night. He lived a mile up the road and had ridden his bicycle down to the store. We rode back to his house and started chatting.
Leonard McClain is a reserved yet hospitable man who lives alone on 40 acres of sandy woodland outside of Cheraw, South Carolina. He’s in shape, smiles often, and has a politeness about him that hints at his time spent in the Navy. Even though he only lives a mile from the store where I met him, he wore a clunky, weathered bicycle helmet for the ride home.
Above: Leonard, 66
He bought his land in 1964 at $100 an acre. Going rates for land in his county now hover around $7,000 an acre. Retired, Leonard spends his days sweeping pine needles so he can later sell them, killing the ever-advancing lines of bushes and weeds that encroach upon his property, and planting pine trees. His dream is to one day get all 40 acres covered in pines and nothing else.
When I asked Leonard why he was so interested in covering his land with only pines, he couldn’t really articulate his main motivation. He liked the way they looked. He enjoyed trying to manipulate the land. He made a little bit of money each year off of selling pine needles to farmers. But considering how much work it takes to create immaculate pine groves, his reasons didn’t seem to adequately explain why he spends six long days of every week digging, chopping, and laying poison out in the sand.
Above: Leonard’s house
After Leonard gave me a tour of his property, he told me I could set up my tent anywhere on his land and use his house as I pleased. I thanked him over and over again for his hospitality, the type of which I’ve encountered so often here in the south that I’m beginning to think something’s in the water. I turned to go push the rig off into the pines to set up camp and Leonard stopped me.
Above: My camp site in the beautiful pine grove Leonard made by hand
“Now Andrew, I don’t mean to pry or involve myself in your personal business, but I’m a Baptist [Leonard pronounced this word as 'Babdis’] and tonight my church is having a special revival service with singers and a preacher from out of town. I’d be honored if you came with me. You don’t have to if you–”
“I’d love to come!” I interjected. “I’m trying to learn as much as I can as I ride and I’ve never been to a southern Baptist service before. That would be great. What time does it start?”
“Oh wonderful. I’m pleased you’ll join me. It starts at seven and I usually try to leave here at six thirty for a seven o’clock service.”
I took a shower in Leonard’s bathroom. When I emerged sporting the type of grin only a hot shower can scribble across the face of a dirty man, Leonard said, “I hope you found everything to be satisfactory, sir.”
At 6:30 p.m. sharp we got in Leonard’s pick-up truck and drove exactly one minute down the road to the church, covering a distance of a quarter mile. The church is right next to Leonard’s property. When we entered, the 15 people in attendance welcomed us and Leonard introduced me. Everyone seemed genuinely excited by me being there and thanked me for showing interest in their small church.
The church was small and sparsely decorated. At the front of the main room hung a board that showed how many people attended last week’s Sunday service, how much money was collected in the offering, and how many people attended Sunday school. With a look of obvious disappointment painted across his face, Leonard explained how 150 people consider this their home church yet only 30-something people attended services regularly. Leonard, as judging by his warm reception when we entered and the way the pastor spoke to him when we left, was clearly a regular.
Above: The view from my seat in church
A small visiting choir took the stage before the main sermon to, as the choir director put it, ‘plow the field’ for the ensuing service. A soundman adjusted the mics and managed a CD player that played instrumental tracks for the choir to use in their performance. After five or six tunes, the visiting pastor, a stocky man by the name of Chris Wills, stood up, introduced himself, and took up position in front of the alter in the main aisle of the church.
For the next hour, Mr. Wills gave a powerful, passionate sermon about the four things that Christians need to do to fully carry out their duties at Christians on Earth. He explained that all Christians must make time in their day to speak with God, must make Christianity the top priority in their lives, must act in accordance with their beliefs, and must tell others about Christ. He talked about how important teenagers are in spreading the word of Christ and how a teen group he works with, Power Planters (or something like that), is designed to get teens primed for ‘church planting’ later in their lives. There was a lot of talk about feeling an obligation to bring Christ to some of the more remote rural areas of the south that are currently church-free. Based on the roads I’ve been traveling so far on my ride, I couldn’t fathom areas in the south that are devoid of churches, but apparently they must exist.
I enjoyed his speech because he was a captivating speaker (he never once looked at any paper and instead spent the entire hour looking into the eyes of his audience) and he used many personal anecdotes about hunting and fishing to keep his lecture fresh and intriguing. Many people in the audience spoke out during his speech, loudly saying “Amen!” or “Praise God almighty!” or “Yessir, Amen!” when he was particularly articulate in his message.
Wills ended his sermon with an activity that caught me off guard. He first asked everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes.
His voice took on an authoritative tone and he said, “If you feel Christ in your heart tonight, if you are ready to make a vow with Christ and promise to read your Bible more often, I want you to stand. No one will see you but God himself. Please stand now.”
With my eyes closed, I could hear a few people stand up.
Then he said, “OK good, good. Now, I want everyone to open your eyes. Now, let’s do something a little different. If you believed in what I said tonight, if you believe in Christ’s love and his ability to save, I want you to do something.” He paused for effect, then bellowed, “If you are willing to make a vow tonight, in this very church, to accept Christ as your number one priority, to accept your responsibility as a Christian to share your faith with non-Christians, to let God into your heart fully and completely, I want you, in plain sight of your congregation and God himself, to stand and stand confidently with the power of Christ!”
Many people screamed out “Amen! Praise Jesus!” and nearly everyone in the church stood up.
Leonard did not.
****
Later, I asked Leonard what he thought about the way Wills closed his speech.
I tried to be delicate in the way I posed my question, but still Leonard became a bit defensive. “Well, I’ve seen that type of thing go on before. It’s an interesting way to bring closure to the night. I, uh, I though, I think my relationship with God is very personal and I just was in no mood tonight to be standing and making some public declaration, that’s all.”
“I totally understand. Do you think anyone in the church stood simply out of peer-pressure? Stood only because their grandfather on the right and mother on the left stood without hesitation?”
“Hmm, that might have happened. I never thought about that. I guess that could have happened.”
We got out of his truck and went into the kitchen. Leonard offered me a drink and opened his fridge. Inside sat five lonely cans of Pepsi, a jug of tea, a stick of butter, and a few condiments. Over cans of soda we talked more about religion.
After telling Leonard that my father was Jewish, he became fascinated with the idea that a ‘Jew’ was sitting in his kitchen, camped out in his pine grove. I assured him I didn’t regard myself as a ‘Jew’ as I have never had any formal Jewish education nor was Judaism a significant part of my upbringing, but he wouldn’t drop the label he assigned me.
He asked me questions about Judaism and went on to explain why he believes all Christians should support Israel and fight for its independence. Leonard admitted that he had never really spoken to a Jewish person before.
Remembering that one of the projects I’m working on with a school in New Jersey revolves around racism, I started asking Leonard about the topic. He made the following assertions concerning race and racism in South Carolina:
–Although slavery was once a pervasive ideology and practice in the south, the racism that many ‘Yanks’ perceive to exist in the south today does not in fact exist. Leonard said many whites now accept blacks in their communities, in their lives, and don’t regard them with any less respect than they do their white peers.
–Bi-racial couples are common in South Carolina, but Leonard said many people in his community are ‘troubled’ by the growing number of white women left to raise their bi-racial children alone. He said he often sees white women out and about with bi-racial children, and often these women are without spouses.
–Leonard estimated that he hears a white person use the N-word to refer to a black person about once a month. He quickly assured me though that he doesn’t think this behavior is representative of the way all whites in the south feel about blacks.
–Although he and his family had no personal connection to slavery, his family was very poor when he was growing up and his poverty affected his racial standing in his youth by making him more similar than different to the black people in his community.
– When he referred to all illegal immigrants in the area as “Mexicans”, Leonard reinforced a certain trend in perspective that seems to exist along my route (so far). He said that he is not against immigrants coming to the U.S., but he just hopes the government makes a decisive move either for or against immigration; the government’s sitting on the fence in regards to immigration, in Leonard’s opinion, is only making the situation worse. He said that we need the help that immigrants provide, but we must figure out a way to include them in our society, a way to get them to pay taxes and contribute to social welfare, or else the sheer numbers of immigrants entering the U.S. year after year will smother certain aspects of American society.
At 10:00 p.m., I excused myself and headed off to bed. Leonard said goodbye and told me he’d leave his back door unlocked in case I needed to come in and get anything throughout the night. Again I found myself in awe of the level of hospitality that’s been extended to me since the start of my ride.
I stepped out his back door and let the chill and darkness of the night swallow me up.
