BillLindau

A Blue Knight in Red Devil Country; an old rival's affection for Aberdeen

Submitted to Aberdeen News & Views, April 6, 2007
In 1969, I would never have believed I would be writing for a magazine devoted to Aberdeen. I lived in Southern Pines during my teens, and off and on after that, and to this day I remain fiercely patriotic about Southern Pines.
But that doesn’t mean we didn’t find anything about our Aberdeen neighbors to love. Such as several clothing stores, a nice movie house that showed the current popular films, a Dairy Queen, and a popular lake to cool off in during the summer. And I miss Aberdeen’s Fourth of July parade.
Aberdeen Lake, in fact, makes up a large part of my memories of the first summer I spent in Moore County.
I moved to the Sandhills from Winston-Salem in the fall of 1966, just as I was starting eighth grade. In those days, when the towns had their own school system, and I only knew one youth from Aberdeen, a classmate who transferred from Aberdeen to East Southern Pines High School after he had gotten into a bit of trouble at Aberdeen.
Aberdeen and Southern Pines also had their own newspapers: The Pilot and the Sandhill Citizen, two weeklies. The Pilot is still in existence, printing three times a week. The Citizen evolved into a daily publication called the Citizen News-Record, before it folded early in 1996.
Those who have moved to the Sandhills since 1980 may have hardly any idea of what relations were like between the two towns. With a smaller population, fewer businesses and, as I noted before, two separate school systems and two different newspapers, the citizens of Southern Pines and Aberdeen stuck to themselves more, unless they held drove to jobs in other towns.
Another huge difference: Southern Pines had more golf courses than Aberdeen did, while Aberdeen had a larger industrial area – chiefly manufacturing.
I also came of age in the days where most of the time, you could walk to everything. All the major businesses and food and clothing stores, the pharmacies, doctors and dentists, police, fire departments, town hall, post offices and the schools, were mostly within walking distance in both Southern Pines and Aberdeen.
I remember this part of local history from an adolescent’s-eye view.
Especially the athletic rivalries between Aberdeen and East Southern Pines high schools.
It was like UNC and N.C. State. The Blue Knights (East Southern Pines) and Red Devils (Aberdeen) scheduled their games at the end of the regular season – the top rivalry in the conference. Southern Pines won the last two football games between the two schools – in the fall of 1967 and 1968.
The fights after the games between Aberdeen and Southern Pines were part of local lore. They usually took place whenever the two groups of kids encountered each other at one of the popular eateries along U.S. 1. I was more of a peace-loving kid than most of my friends, so I never got into any of the fights myself.
At East Southern Pines, we had our own images of the Aberdeen residents, and it was not too flattering, so I won’t go into it. I have no doubt the Aberdeen High students had the same stereotypes of Southern Pines kids.
In the summer of 1969 some kids in Southern Pines would hang around the town park, predicting what would happen when Pinecrest opened and the kids from the different schools in Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen and West End got together. There would be fights all over the place.
They were wrong.
As a matter of fact, many of the kids from different schools became close friends. Once they played football and basketball together and joined the same clubs, we all put aside our differences and decided those other folks weren’t so bad after all. We all went to parties together, and I still count a lot of past and present Aberdeen residents among my closest friends.
Even before the schools opened, I went to Aberdeen a lot. I got my first job in the Aberdeen town limits, at Hardee’s. I bought a lot of clothes from the merchants downtown and saw many a movie at the Town and Country Cinema (which, sad to say, has just closed). Among these movies were “The Dirty Dozen” “Bonnie and Clyde” “You Only Live Twice” and “Romeo and Juliet”.
Some of us Southern Pines kids even rode our bicycles to Aberdeen Lake. I remember riding along with one of my more athletic friends, in the middle of July. It wore my out trying to keep up with him. We rode them on the main drag, too; I wouldn’t dare attempt that now.
Aberdeen, we see, has changed a lot since then. The Dairy Queen folded about 30 years ago; the Aberdeen Law Enforcement Center is now on that site. At least two of the clothing and shoe stores I often patronized have closed, and these kinds of businesses are now out in various malls – far beyond walking distance. Since 1996, Aberdeen has received its news from outlets that are not in the town limits. And Aberdeen no longer holds its time-honored Fourth of July Parade.
The change is not all bad. The town has its own recreation department, and at least one art gallery and one music store. There are some good places to eat and shop along the main drag.
Some things have remained, however. The lake remains a popular recreation area, with a fabulous evening celebration and fireworks show on the Fourth of July. Then there is the annual Malcolm Blue Festival in the fall.
It’s really kind of a treat to be writing for a publication devoted to Aberdeen and its neighboring communities, such as Pinebluff, Addor, Ashley Heights, Roseland etc. Check it out!

Labels: Newspaper columns

posted by Bill Lindau @ 9:13 AM