Bird Thompson Remembers Gaffney's Finest eateries in the Halcyon Days of the 60s and 70s

     Bird Dean Thompson was older brother of my classmate. Lucille. He was a lineman for Wayne Whiteside right in the Middle of one chapter of Gaffney's gridiron Glory Days. I remember in Ms Sutton's sixth grade class in fall of  64 Lucille gave us a straight from the Huddle report on Gaffney's chances one afternoon for our prospects that evening.

     Bird worked for the fire department with Chief Petty in the 70s and one of my fondest and most colorful conversations privy too Bird witnessed the summer we exitted Gaffney in 78. My family had already gone to Knoxville and I stuck around a couple weeks.

    Petty was a deacon at Bethany Church. I stopped in the Fire Hall late one afternoon and now that the dust was settling a little Chief Petty was unhindered in his perspective. He was laying it down. Bird was up squatted on a Bunk Bed and he kept chimin in: "Charles is Right; Charles is Right."

       Bird recently graced the letters column of the Cherokee Chronicle whose editor is the Gaffney Great Raconteur Tommy Martin.

    Here is Bird in his own words and his finest with fond memories

          REMEMBER THESE?
“Good day Mr. Martin, speaking of your article Thursday on ‘Delicious
Memories,’ I know someone will remember these places, but here goes.
“On Monday nights after a home football game on Friday, the booster
club would feed the Gaffney team at Mabry’s downtown, There was the
Little MOO up by the swimming pool, Jack Millwood, his wife and Eddie
ran the place, the hamburger meat was always white never could figure
that out,
“Willard’s down on Pecan Street was all ways a treat for hash, Paul
Turner and his wife and Pat and Linda open the Pizza Inn over by the
Overhead bridge.
“Other places were treats also: Roses Dime Store had lunch counter
where you could get drinks, ice cream and sandwiches, the round seats
would go round and round, that was a cheap ride.
“You could go downtown on Saturday and get a haircut and then go
to Browns Market and look in the window and see all those fried chickens
going around and around. They would use a large fork and pick up the
chicken and drop it in a bucket of BBQ sauce and then put it in a lined bag.
It stayed hot enough to get home.
“When you went to a drug store you could get a ham, egg salad on
toast. You could always go and have the other Chicken (who ran the
BlueBird) grind you some ice and open a Pepsi. Nowhere on this earth
could you find something so good.
“Once a year we got to go to Kelly’s across the river. Its still the best.
You could all ways Get to Jennings Trading Post and get a footlong hotdog
all the way.
“Thanks for the good work, As JM Smith would say, “Gaffney is the
finest place on Gods green earth, (was and is)” – Dean “Bird” Thompson,
Spartanburg, and proud Gaffney native
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