REMEMBERING GIBSON'S POND

BY: Michael A. Aun, FIC, LUTCF, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame

We didn't have air conditioning in our house on South Lake Drive in Lexington, SC when I was growing up. Our a/c system was a huge ceiling fan that pulled the cool outside air through the house and funneled it out through the attic vents.

You got used to it, and it was actually very peaceful. You could go to sleep each night to the sounds of the nighttime crickets. My favorite nights were Friday and Saturday nights.

As a pre-teen, I loved going to Lexington High School football games and watching my heroes Gerald Burnette and the Looney boys, Hal and Bob, do their heroics on the gridiron for Coach Ingram's Lexington Wildcats.

I'd walk from our house on South Lake Drive about one mile to the old Lexington High Stadium, which was located in the intersection of US 378 and US 1 behind the old Hite's Restaurant which was next to Looney's Chevrolet. None of that exists today.

There was standing room only every Friday night, so I would always get there two hours early. Many a Friday night some 5,000 people packed their way into that old stadium to watch the Wildcats do their magic against the likes of Batesburg-Leesville, Saluda, Strom Thurmond High and others.

It was exciting watching the Wildcats claw their way to victory, but some of my fondest memories were when I would get home. After every game all the kids would go to Gibson's Pond to dance the night away after grabbing a hamburger at Hite's.

Gibson's Pond was a couple of miles away from our home as the bird flies, and we could hear the sounds of beach music filling the night from the bands playing upstairs at the old pond dancehall.

During the summer, Friday and Saturday nights were my beloved evenings in my pre-teen years. I could go to sleep to the reverberation and sounds of the Tams, the Temptations, the Georgia Prophets and the Drifters, just to name a few.

Later, childhood friends of mine Matthew Bennett and Richard Shealy and others would form their own bands to play the Gibson Pond stage and others all over the southeast.

Even my sister Lorraine and my brother Charlie had their own band "T-L-C," an acronym for Tender Loving Care. They were quite popular all over the southeast for a number of years.

For the lack of a better description, Gibson's Pond was reminiscent of the movie Dirty Dancing, made popular in the mid eighties. Much of the music was the same. Local bands would take the stage upstairs at the Gibson's Pond dancehall and would play their tunes as people "shagged" the night away.

During the day, kids of all ages went swimming at Gibson's pond. The downstairs area housed the dressing rooms and you walked upstairs to the old dance hall. Little cottages dotted the landscape around the pond, again reminiscent of Dirty Dancing.

My fondness for beach music was borne on those Friday and Saturday nights, and when I was old enough to go, I would head to Gibson's Pond with all my friends and keep the tradition alive, dancing deep into the night.

On Sundays, we would spend the afternoon and evening there as well, listening to the oldies on the juke box and sipping bootleg booze acquired from sources I still refuse to name till this day.

For the thousands of new Lexington people, you will never know the joy and fun of "old Lexington." The Friday night lights that illuminated the town from the old Lexington Stadium…. the hamburgers and french fries at Hite's Restaurant…. the dancing at the old Lexington gym on North Lake Drive…. the shagging at Gibson's Pond…. the Liver Nips that Roy Rawl served at Rawl's Restaurant every Friday.... the cookouts that my granddaddy "Jew Mack" would put on for the football players behind his house after a big win…. and on and on and on.

You had to be there to appreciate it. You'll never know what you missed. Welcome to Lexington!