I grew up in the old deep, south, both a blessing and a curse. Lexington, South Carolina, the place of my birth, is different today, and that is both good and bad.

I miss the peace and quiet of my youth, being able to play a game of baseball literally on the streets without having to stop for a car every three seconds. I don't miss some of the prejudice that existed in my youth.

I am Catholic by faith and of Lebanese descent. As a youth, I recall my grandparents on both sides of the house saying they were of Syrian descent. At one point in time, they probably were because borders shifted in the Middle East then as they do now.

My nickname growing up was "Jew boy." How can you derive "Jew boy" from a person of Lebanese descent who practices the Catholic religion? Answer: pure ignorance and prejudice. I know how my Jewish friends feel; I felt their pain growing up.

The first person I remember meeting who was actually Jewish was our family's insurance agent, Lou Schaffer, who worked for Metropolitan Life. There were no Catholic churches or synagogues in Lexington in those days, so Lou attended the Baptist church. My grandfather attended St. Stephen's Lutheran Church.

My grandfather, Elias S. Mack, Sr., who was Mayor of Lexington from 1947 to 1951, was affectionately known as "Jew Mack." In the old deep, south in those days, you were one of three things: a white man, a black man or a Jew.

He was Mayor for a couple of years before they found out he was an illegal alien, requiring him to call on his old buddy, then Governor Strom Thurmond, to help him straighten out his residency.

If you were Catholic as we were, you were placed in the third group. My little league and Pony League teammates got a big kick out of referring to me as a Dago-Wop Jew. More ignorance and prejudice. You either move to a new town or you grow thick skin. I don't miss that part of growing up.

I shiver at the recollection of watching a cross being burned by the Klan in front of the home of an innocent targeted family. I vividly recall the KKK coming through town as I walked home one night with flashing crosses on the front of their trucks and hoods over their heads.

I remember the unmerciful kidding I received from teammates about not being able to eat the team meal of fried chicken on a Friday night because I was Catholic and in those days we didn't eat meat on Friday. My father and Catholic Priest at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Columbia finally went to the Bishop of the Diocese and I was granted a special dispensation so that I could join in on the team meal. That brought even more criticism and jostling-- this time from a teammates and coaches.

You learn to either fight or flee. Fleeing wasn't an option and I wasn't much of a fighter, so regretfully, I accepted what I could not change and lived my life as best I could. The many good things that most people felt about my family far outweighed the jokes and innuendos leveled at my religion or heritage.

Like most immigrants of his their day, my grandfather became a self-employed businessman because immigrants with little education could not find work. No one would hire them as they were a despised minority.

Born Elias Skaff on May 28, 1893, when he came to America the folks at Ellis Island told him you might want to change that name Mac. So he chose "Mack" as his last name.

Elias Skaff Mack, Sr. was a merchant that pulled a horse drawn wagon across the countryside trading his dry goods for a bushel of corn, which he in turn traded to another farmer for tomatoes, which he parlayed into a hind quarter with another farmer or chickens with another. Eventually, he opened Mack's Cash and Carry Grocery Store as well as Victory Jewelers.

His first wife, Cora Belle Parker died when my mother was but a child. He took a second wife, Ernestine Roberts, who is still alive at the age of 94 today.

One of Jew Mack's sons, Elias Skaff Mack, Jr., was also elected Mayor of Lexington exactly forty years to the day after his father by the almost same identical vote, suggesting that nobody moved in or out of Lexington for four decades.