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The Prater's Creek Gazette

13th Issue Spring 2007 Page #11


 As Compiled by Sports Editor Bubba McCalister and his brother Dorris


32nd Horseshoe Tourney/Drinking Contest To Be Held

Horseshoe gifAn event that has been gaining national attention, both good and bad, will be held for the 32nd consecutive year. The Clang ‘Em and Drain ‘Em Tournament will be held out at the Jenkin’s Farm out on Terrapin Crossing on July 8th. The event, which has a unique scoring system, was started as part of a “Get Out The Vote” campaign for voter registration in 1972.

The tournament’s point system includes the normal horseshoe rules of three points for a ringer, two for a leaner, and one for horseshoe width closest, but it also includes points for moonshine consumption. Tournament organizer Bob Jenkins explained it this way. “Now if a team throws nothing but ringers, but don’t drink a drop” Mr. Jenkins said, “they could be eliminated by a team that hardly gets the shoes near the stob but downs a bunch of liquor. So when drawing names out of the hat for tournament pardners, you want a person who can throw a horseshoe accurately and that has a ‘hollow leg’”. “And”, Jenkins added, “whar a horseshoe leaner will get you two points, a contestant that is too drunk and caught leaning against the barn or a tree just to to be able to stand up will be penalized two points”. Last year’s winners pulled of a rare Fisherman Logodouble when they threw the best games and drank more ‘shine than anybody else.

Carp Fishing Tournament To Be Held

The annual Prater’s Creek Carp fishing Tournament will be held the first weekend in August. Entry forms can be picked up at Livwright’s General Store.

Polecats Bring Home State Title

baseball gifKeith Peahuff Jr. hit a grand slam in the bottom of the 14th inning to help the Polecats overcome a three run deficit and defeat the Riverside Worriers and win the state high school baseball championship. With the bases loaded, Peahuff drove a ball so far that spectators swear it could have been a hole in one on Hole 18 at Matt’s Putt Putt and that Keith Jr. should have gotten a free game pass.

Keith Jr. transferred to Prater’s Creek last year after the school zones were redrawn and his old neighborhood in Greer, SC, Pleasant Grove, was now Greer High School territory. Teenagers in Pleasant Grove had gone to Riverside High since that school opened in 1973. But because of all of the money moving into the Sugar Creek area, Pleasant Grove kids, who were always the backbone at Riverside High, are not welcome anymore.

“I grew up waiting for the day I could play for the Greer High Yellow Jackets” the senior Peahuff said. “And then one day at Greer Middle School they called all of us eighth graders that were from Pleasant Grove to an assembly to tell us we wouldn’t be going to Greer High next year. We’d be going to a new high school called Riverside. Later that day the news drifted out that the construction going on out in the middle of nowhere at the crossroads of Hammet Bridge and Suber Roads, amongst all of the cow pastures, would be our new high school. Word got out to all of the other students too, and we felt like lepers.

“But that was all right, we went to Riverside and it was great. But now they were going to send my son to another school, and we live in Pleasant Grove, a mile from Riverside!
So we moved to Prater’s Creek so Junior could be a Polecat.” Keith Jr. said “it was great beating those snotty guys from Riverside to win the state title!”

Special Sports Editorial: Let's All Boo Barry Bonds

Sometime this summer, Barry bonds will hit his 755th and 756th home runs tying and surpassing Henry Aaron’s record. No true fans of the great game of baseball will be happy to see this happen.

Back in 1974, as Aaron was narrowing in on Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs there was a lot of discussion over The Babe’s record being broken. Yes, there was the ignorance and hatred of bigotry involved, evidenced by the hundreds of death threats received by Aaron. But folks like my daddy didn’t care that it was a black player who was going to eclipse Babe Ruth. It was the fact that somebody, anybody, was going to break the Babe's record.

Babe Ruth was bigger than baseball. He was like Paul Bunyon or John Henry come to life, swinging a Louisville Slugger instead of an ax or a nine-pound hammer. Henry Aaron was, and still is, a great human being. A more upstanding man you’d be hard pressed to find. But he was never bigger than the game, a veritable symbol of America like George Herman Ruth. During the Vietnam War, you never heard of any Vietcong yelling “To hell with Hank Aaron” the way German soldiers shouted “To hell with Babe Ruth” when storming a hill.

But Hank Aaron was one of my heroes growing up, and getting to go down and see him play at Fulton County Stadium was one of the highlights of my youth. And it makes me sick to see his record to be broken by the likes of Barry Bonds. Even if Bonds had polecat ticket adnot obviously taken steroids to make him hit the majority of his home runs, I’d still be sickened by his breaking Aaron’s record.

The disgust felt by baseball fans has nothing to do with Bonds’ skin color. Have white fans overlooked Mark McGuire’s non- answers on Capitol Hill because of his white skin? No, it is Bond’s arrogant demeanor that shows how little he cares for his teammates and the game of baseball. His arrogance represents what is wrong with professional sports in the United States.

Fired Talk Show Host To Call Polecat Football Games

Don Imus, who was fired from CBS radio and WNBC television back in April for using derogatory terms in describing Rutgers University women’s basketball players has been hired to do play by play for the Prater’s Creek Polecat high school football team this fall.

Take a second and think about Don Imus uttering the words: “Prater’s Creek Polecats”. See, he’s gonna do just fine.

“Midnite Run For The Jug” To Be Held

jug walking gifYou don’t see many people out jogging in Prater’s Creek, but on the night of September 1, the streets will be full of people running as the Midnite Run For the Jug is held. The annual event started back in 1986 when the upstate of South Carolina suffered an extended drought, which practically destroyed the corn crop. Dr. Ignatius J. Trundell, better known as Grandpa, of The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show was having trouble getting corn to make enough of his elixir to sale. Grandpa remembers that “it was a turrible summer, we’s having to rely on just playing music to make a living. The couple a hundred gallons I made was strictly for family consumption. I did have one jug I’s willing to sell”. When word got out that Grandpa was going to set the one jug on a tree stump and the first person to run and get it got to keep it, over one hundred people showed up. The race was so much fun the competition has been renewed each summer, whether there’s a shortage of elixir or not.

Prater’s Creek First and Only Sports Bar Goes Out of Business

Bobby Blatz of “Big Bobby’s Sport Bar and Grill” has closed his doors for the last time. It seems Bobby, who is from Pittsburgh, PA moved down here and thought a sports bar that showed nothing but NHL games would go over with the locals. But Big Bobby learned the hard way that Southerners don’t give a hoot about hockey.


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