By MONTE DUTTON Click here. Some of the cooler things I’ve ever done: No particular order. Watching part of the Rolex 24 in Daytona Beach, Fla., at midnight from a Ferris wheel. Driving the Pacific Coast Highway in a car full of scribes when we pass a restaurant on the water. Out front, a man …
Tag: memories
Stuff I’ll remember most from 2023
By MONTE DUTTON Clinton celebrates a state championship. (Monte Dutton photo) https://www.scfbins.com/agents/buddybridges Everybody does the same thing this time of year, and I’m not referring to regifting a pair of socks. Everybody rates. The season’s best games. The year’s best stories. The best batches of chili. The worst slices of fruitcake. I’m not going to …
The racer once known as Wonderboy
By MONTE DUTTON (Pixabay) Many of my favorite times as a sportswriter occurred during experiences I didn’t have to share with anyone. … … NASCAR race mornings in the press box, chatting and sipping coffee with Benny Parsons or Buddy Baker. … … Sharing a golf cart with Jimmy Spencer or Randy LaJoie. I’d have …
A long time ago, at an age far, far away
By MONTE DUTTON (Pixabay photo) Duty called me to Greenwood on Tuesday. Specifically, it called me to the UPS Store to return some equipment to its provider. Options were about equally limited. I could drive to Spartanburg, Simpsonville or Greenwood, all about equidistant. I chose the city across the lake because I’d rather drive a …
Good Times, Great Oldies …
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, April 27, 2019, 6:07 p.m. It’s been a busy week but also one full of rich, evocative experiences. All week long, I experienced warm reminiscences through the mists of a time that seem superior to what I’m living now. That’s the way memories are. They get better with time. It wasn’t …
For Old Times’ Sake
Clinton, South Carolina, Saturday, January 26, 2019, 12:01 p.m. I was tooling around Spartanburg, driving a hot rod that looked like about a ’57 Thunderbird. It was two-tone red and white. I stopped at a drive-in for two hot dogs and a chocolate shake. I drove over to the Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds and took a …
Inside the Park
It was the bottom of the sixth inning on a Tuesday afternoon, and Johnny Shelburn stepped to the plate with the bases empty and two men out. Sacks, his teammates called him. He played first base. He took a strike. A little high for his taste. The Larranega Heights pitcher was a lefty. He …
One of My Daddy’s Days
This was a Daddy Day, which is not to say I am one. It is a subset of what my late father called “one of them Dutton deals.” To me, a Daddy’s Day is one in which very little gets done. My father, who died nearly 22 years ago, could waste a day as …
Changes Ten by Ten
Fifty years ago, my father voted for and bet on Barry Goldwater, not to win the election but to carry South Carolina. He won. Goldwater lost. The election, not South Carolina. NASCAR’s greatest hero at the time, “Fireball” Roberts, was horribly burned at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He lived for more than two months, and every …
Nightrider's Lament 