The Carolinas are known for racing, Baptism, and above all, barbeque. South Carolina and North Carolina were the last two of 41 states we are visiting on our 92 day road trip, but by no means are they the least. Stopping by in South Carolina for a barbeque picnic hosted by Sprint and the South Carolina Association of the Deaf certainly was the most local thing for us to do, so we went to Lexington to do just that.

The picnic served delicious barbequed pork, chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, and iced tea. I don’t know how much more Carolina this meal could get and the best part was that more than 115 people came to the park for a day of good food and conversation. There, I learned a little about the SCAD which has been open since 1911 and runs on government grants. They were founded by the South Carolina School for the Deaf alums and their main focus, explained Andrea Johnson who is board secretary and treasurer, is to foster the success of Deaf individuals into leaders. At the picnic, I met Willie Brant, who was born in Fairfax, South Carolina way back in 1901.

Willie spent most of his life working in text mills and is living testament that the Deaf community in the Carolinas has gone a long way in his lifetime. He served as president of SCAD for six years and after his tenure as president, he wanted to get more involved in the community. He sought a seat on the board of trustees for the South Carolina School for the Deaf, but was denied a place simply because he was Deaf. He was told that because he was Deaf, he was considered a troublemaker because of his “outrageous demands” of seeking equal opportunities for the Deaf community when it comes to interpreting, employment, and education. Finally, in the mid-60s, he was granted a spot on the board and served for years. He talked to us about how he has seen technology evolve from basically nothing in 1901, all the way to the Sidekicks and VRS services of today and he is just stunned. It’s a great era to be Deaf in America, said the 93 year old man who has seen it all.

By the time everyone had second helpings and the kids were tired of running around a water faucet in their bathing suits, we had to start driving up north to the 41st and final state of our road trip to Morganton, North Carolina, my old hometown. Morganton is the home of the North Carolina School for the Deaf, the largest school for the Deaf in the United States in terms of acreage, with 212 beautiful rolling wooded acres. Jed and Branic had both never been to the school that I call the most beautiful, and they were certainly wowed at the campus. I then took them right across the street to my family’s favorite pizza place, Buck’s Pizza, where we would walk for pizza every Friday when we lived there. Our reason for visiting Morganton wasn’t to visit NCSD, but to visit what seems to be the only Deaf owned golf course in the United States.

Charles Crowe bought 288 acres in 1991 about five miles north of Morganton. It is right in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains with a view that can’t be beat. All 288 acres were densely wooded when he first bought the land with a creek and a small lake. Over the course of nine years since 1995, Charles has since cut down several acres of wood by himself and shaped a piece of the land into a 9-hole golf course. He has built trails for golf carts, stocked the pond with fish, and spent countless hours talking to the grass, trying to get it to grow. He has room for 36 holes, but hopes to just expand it to 27 holes and open it to the public. It is a personal project of his and his son that he enjoys immensely, and today was the first time he invited a crowd to come and see his course.

We arrived three hours early because we wanted to make sure that everything was alright for the gathering that afternoon. No, really we just wanted to get in as many holes as we could before the party started, so Branic, Jed and I went out on the nine holes and had a fantastic time playing the scenic but challenging holes. It was the first time I have ever experienced being the only people on an entire golf course, and it was fantastic. There was no waiting for lousy golfers in front of me and no pressure from idiots behind me to hurry up. It was fun for us to golf at a course where every single landscaping design has a reason which was explained to us by Charles Crowe himself. It gave us a better appreciation of where we were golfing, and when the course is finally mature and ready for the public, it is going to be a stellar place to golf.

By 2 in the afternoon, people had started to arrive and while refreshments and tours of the huge grounds were available, 10 golfers gathered for a game of shoot out hosted by Charles Crowe. For many of the local Deaf golfers, it was their first time playing at the course and they were thrilled to finally be able to tee off at the place where their friend had poured so many hours into. The rules of the game were simple, and that the player with the most strokes at the hole would be eliminated, hole by hole until there was one golfer left standing. I don’t know if I had really had a great time playing in the shoot out, because guess who was the first eliminated. One hole wasn’t enough for me to give a fair evaluation but three holes later, Jed was finally eliminated. He had a great time competing with the Morganton golfers who are very talented golfers. It isn’t any surprise once you find out that once a month, local Deaf golfers (there are plenty) gather for a very competitive tournament. One of the 10 golfers Jed and I competed against was Tim Hickman, a man who has gone to 219 consecutive tournaments, a streak of Cal Ripken proportions when you realize that it dates back more than 15 years. With his conservative play, Stephen Woodard finally won the competition nine holes later. Golf is a common pastime for the Deaf in Morganton, fueled by competition. I was the one who suffered the wrath of being an inexperienced golfer trying to play with “the big boys.” In all reality, they’re very friendly people and I had a lot of fun golfing with them, however brief.

Still, they couldn’t let me hang around for a few holes?