There are dangers everywhere I guess...
The year was 1977. We had traveled from our home at Big Easonburg (crossroads) now West Mount Drive, to Little Easonburg (crossroads), now Hwy 64 Business, to get gas on Sunday.
Sundays in the 1970s were days of rest. Businesses were closed in the Bible belt to allow everyone to go to church.
My Grandparents (and before) never worked on Sundays, only work they would perform was feeding the livestock, or the women putting a chicken in the oven to bake, heating up veggies.
My family did a lot of "visitin" and "settin on the porch" at several family homes on any given Sunday, especially Grandma V's house at Little Easonburg, or Grandma W's house (Great Grandfather Adams farm in Shelmerdine, Pitt County).
Mom and I were headed to Big Easonburg as there were 2 gas pumps there that were new
technology using a vending machine system. You could feed dollar bills in the machine cash box, pump the fuel and it would automatically shut off when fueling finished. There was nothing on the lot, just the 2 pumps with gravel driveways on each side. This vendor style pump was very useful on Sundays when you needed gas and the stores were closed.
Once we filled up the car, a 1972 Ford Gran Torino, we started back home. Little Easonburg is a small community, mainly lower income residential houses and 4 stores on each corner of Sunset Avenue (Hwy 64 business) and Halifax Rd.
As soon as you crossed the railroad track, heading south, you were back in the country.
Just past the railroad track, was a small farmhouse on the right. The house had a porch all the way across the front and it sat very close to Halifax Road.
Mom's light 2 tone green Ford Gran Torino had black interior and no AC It was summer in the south and very hot, so the windows were down to provide ventilation. We now call that 455 AC, 4 windows down at 55 miles per hour. :)
As the house was in view, we noticed 2 people on the porch 'settin' in rocking chairs. A lone man was standing feet away from the road, just the other side of the ditch, with his back to us, his right arm extended with a 45 revolver pointed toward the the couple on the porch. The woman on the porch was leaning forward, arms crossed on her lap, and the man beside her sitting back with both hands on the side of the chair. Not a sound was being made....from the man with the gun, or the couple on the porch. No one showed any emotion.
It was surreal. I asked Mom "Did you see what I just saw"? She acknowledged she had seen it.
Mom wasted no time getting away from there, but it didn't matter...as we had passed the house before our minds could really comprehend what was happening. This "photograph" in time is as sharp and crisp for me today as it was 40 years ago.
The police were called. Never heard anything else about it. I think of this day everytime I ride by this location.
I guess sometimes porch 'settin' can be dangerous.... who knew?
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