Remembering 10/25/1994

On the surface it was just another day.  I'm sure I attended school that Tuesday at Buffalo Elementary.  I would have been in the 4th grade, Mrs. Linda Clippard's class.  She was, is, and will always be my favorite teacher.  For those who are my age and older, Oct 25, 1994 was the beginning of a 9 day journey that took small town South Carolina to front page USA.
By now, most of my friends and family have probably figured out what I'm writing about.  That night a young mother named Susan Smith reported a car jacking/kidnapping in my hometown of Union, SC. Her story was that, while stopped at a red light in Monarch, a black male approached her car, with a gun and ordered her out of it.  He jumped in, and sped off.  For 9 days, our town, our state, and the nation held its breath...waiting, hoping, and praying that those boys would be alright.
I remember it like it was yesterday.  The news reports, the scenes of men and women on horseback, on foot, and with dogs, combing through the woods between Union and Chester and over the state. The media took over our little town for 9 days.  Camera crews, satellite trucks, news vans all flocked to main street Union's courthouse.
We wore yellow ribbons to promote hope that the boys were safe and would be returned.  Many folks had t-shirts, buttons, and hats with those two little guys' pictures on there. Deep down inside, I think the people of Union knew what really happened, before it became public knowledge.
9 agonizing days went by, and as a 10 year old during the season surrounding Halloween, the thought that there might be a man out there stealing kids is quite frightening.
Another memory of this time, was that I missed a Union High game, one of very few.  Union was coming off a win against Gaffney, which as many know was a HUGE game.  The following week, on Oct 30th, they traveled to Dorman and lost.  We missed the game because Dad wasn't feeling well.
Tension was very high in Union during this time.  The fact that Susan Smith blamed a black man for kidnapping her children and stealing her car was bad enough, but, the longer it went on without "him" being found, the worse things got.
On Nov 3rd, in the basement of First Baptist Church in Union, Sheriff David Wells got Susan Smith to admit to sending her two beautiful children to the bottom of John D. Long lake inside a Mazda Protege`. The news sent shock waves through our small tight-knit community.
On the forefront, there was a woman who was capable of killing her two children.  No one really knew why, although speculation would lead us to believe she wanted to get rid of them for an affair.  Others say she was mentally deranged because of years of abuse at the hands of her step-father.  I don't know, and I cannot begin to understand what would cause a person, more importantly a parent to kill young children, especially their own.
Another issue was that the black community felt slighted because she blamed it on a "black" man that never existed.  I seriously doubt there was ever any intention on her part to place blame on a black man because she somehow wanted to degrade or demean black people in general.  All I know is that is divided our town for a little while, and made things very uncomfortable.
Looking back now, the case and everything surrounding it intrigues me.  It always has, and it probably always will.  Every year about this time, I go back to being a 10 year old boy in Union.  I can smell the fair in town, and I can remember the yells of football games.  I can remember going around town to members of Tabernacle Baptist Churches' homes for trick-or-treating. I have so many fond memories of growing up in a small town in the south, where friends, family, faith, and football are all still important.
But, the fall of 1994 will always be with me.  Now, more than ever it haunts me.  The thought of what she did to her children, for her own selfishness will always send chills up my spine.  Now that I have a son of my own, and expecting a second child, what she did seems unfathomable.
I have now transitioned from a 10 year old at Buffalo elementary school to a 30 year old high school teacher, husband, and father.  The sadness is still there, it just hits a little harder now.

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