Through an Old Cop's Eyes: Paratroopers, Fire Ants and Birthday Cake

I remember a time when fire ants being in the southern border states was big news. These tiny insects were supposed to be killers, attacking their victims in swarms and causing intense pain to go along with massive swelling of the airway, literally choking people to death.

A few decades later, they're still with us in the southlands as more of a nuisance than anything else. I personally found that out four weeks ago while in South Carolina for my mother's 85th birthday.

Stacy and I traveled the roughly 550 miles from our home to the town of Easley on a sunny Sunday, preferring the mostly four-lane route of U.S. 23 over the combat-driving of interstate highways; its very scenic, affording the opportunity to see backroads America during the journey through southern Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina before hitting I-85 outside Greenville, SC for a whopping ten miles.

To say my mom Betty was glad to see us is an understatement. Leaving at 0515 that day, we walked though her door around 2:30 in the afternoon to find my brother Jim and sister Chris already at mom's place. As I knew she would, Mom had fixed a spread of food fit for a king, including (but not limited to) meat loaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli, corn, potato salad, sweet potato casserole and more.

I'm working on losing the six pounds I gained that week. Nobody cooks like Mama.

During the week we were there, Mom, Stacy and I (my siblings aren't retired like I am) toured second-hand stores and antique shops, something we all like to do. Mom is a real bargain hunter; you should see the cherry armoire she owns...that she got for five bucks! It at one time had a big scratch on the side, which Mom fixed with one of those wood-scratch filler pens to the extent its nearly impossible to see, unless you know exactly where to look.

I turned one of our antique-seeking excursions into a historical field trip. Forming the plan in mind, I located a very large antique store (three floors' worth) using the internet in the little town of Toccoa, Georgia, about sixty miles from my mother's home. The antique store, located in beautifully quaint downtown Toccoa, was lodged in one of those old-time department stores, complete with an elevator right out of the late 1940s. It took us a full two hours to see all they had, which in turn produced our antique wooden ironing board. Stacy's intending to turn it into something crafty-ish.

We loaded up in my wife's Jeep Laredo, I punched in 'Camp Toccoa' on my phone's mapping app and, ten minutes later, we were at the gates of the former World War II US Army paratrooper training facility, its significance largely lost to society save for those of us who remember and honor those who sacrificed so much.

Camp Toccoa, you see, sits at the base of Currahee mountain...and was home to thousands of men training to become paratroopers during World War II. If you're a 'Band of Brothers' fan you know where I'm talking about. Dick Winters, Bull Randleman, Lewis Nixon, Carwood Lipton and a host of others from Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment walked, ran and marched over the grounds of Toccoa. Several other PIRs trained there but, thanks to the HBO miniseries which aired in 2001, the 506th is the most storied and well known.

While Mom and my wife waited in the car (they weren't nearly as excited as I was about being there), I stood for a moment beneath the overhead gate banner, my mind trying to envision this place in 1943. Most of the original buildings are long gone, with several mock-ups standing in their place, save for one original barracks building which housed a small museum. Three Harley motorcycles were parked outside, along with a SUV; inside I met the three riders, all Gulf War veterans, and I thanked them for their service. I also met George Smith, curator of the museum, who showed me several displays and explained their meaning.

I mentioned to George that I am a very serious metal detectorist and that I would love to detect the grounds of what remains of Camp Toccoa, adding that, if that were to happen, I'd gladly donate any significant finds to the museum. George told me he'd take it up with the camp's board of directors, but believed I'd be given permission to hunt the grounds. I'm waiting to hear back from him. George told me that the "TV guys" from the old metal detecting show 'Diggers' had detected Camp Toccoa ten years ago and that they'd concentrated mainly on the old rifle range.

I was beside myself with excitement when I got back to the car, an excitement that was lost on the two most important women in my life. "That's nice, honey" was all my smiling wife said, knowing how much I love both the hobby and WW II history.

Then came the second part of our visit, one that got more of a rise out of Mom and Stacy.

We drove the Colonel Bob Sink trail to the top of Currahee. Sink was the original commanding officer of the 506th PIR, portrayed in B of B by retired Marine Captain Dale Dye. A gruff, no nonsense officer.

The trail was no nonsense, too. To say it was in dire need of repair is a massive understatement. The first third of the way wasn't too bad, but the higher we went the worse the trail became. Large gullies from rainwater run-off made very slow speed a life-or-death necessity, as there were, in places, large drop-offs on the downhill side of the trail. It wasn't actually a road; rather, it became more of a path. Suffice it to say that we wouldn't have made it to the top of the mountain without our 4-wheel drive Jeep.

The view from the top, though, was breathtaking.

Trekking back down was uneventful, being that I knew what to expect; near the bottom of the mountain a Toyota Camry, occupied by two teenage-looking girls, passed us headed up. I thought briefly about flagging them down and warning about the very rough terrain but I didn't. Sometimes people just have to find things out for themselves.

The next day, thanks to a tip from Mike at @digginhistorysc on Instagram, I ventured to Greenville's south side to the old Donaldson Army Air Corps base, its runways now used by a small commercial airport. During WW II, the Army trained B-24 air crews at Donaldson but, much as at Camp Toccoa, all the original barracks were gone. The area was now just one large, open field, save for the few stubby, cracked and weathered concrete piers poking out of the ground here and there.

It wasn't long before I was painfully reminded about the fire ants. I'd been too engrossed in swinging the coil, listening to the staccato of multi-tonal feedback through my headphones, to notice the many, many small, red mounds of dirt or the smallish but fierce insects swarming around them. They made their presence known when I sat on the ground to use my pinpointer in a hole I'd just opened up.

Wearing denim shorts had been a mistake.

Almost simultaneously, as if a signal had been given, the twenty or so ants started biting/stinging their way up my lower legs and it took a good five minutes to get them off me. Angry red welts soon appeared, accompanied by persistent, though tolerable, pain. I continued metal detecting but now took note of the mounds of earth, careful to avoid by a good five feet sitting near them.

Lesson learned, the hard way. Weeks later as I write this, I still have one small scab on the inside of my right lower leg to remind me of the encounter.

Then came Saturday and Mom's 85th birthday party, held at my sister Chris and her awesome husband Dan's home outside of Cowpens, SC. In conversation with my siblings, we'd discovered that this had been the first time Mom had all four of her children together for a happy occasion in quite some time. The last had been when Dad died on October 6th, 2014, and again in January of this year when my older sister's husband David passed away..

With much great food followed by birthday cake, all of us thoroughly enjoyed being together, reveling in an assortment of stories and memories from childhood, though, in my recollection, there'd been a few embellishment of facts, resulting in me being more of a rascal than I thought I was.

Stacy and I headed homeward the next day, joyous in returning to Black Gold Homestead and our doggie Roscoe but saddened that our time in South Carolina had come to an end. Many memories were made that week, ones that I'll fondly recall as I venture further into my golden years.

Except for the dang fire ants.