I was trying to put together a set of dreams to get through the night recently when the weirdest thing popped into my head. After a tough day on the road, I sometimes seek the solitude of fond childhood experiences to get to sleep. Try it; it works.

There I was giving a speech in Las Vegas at the Golden Nugget to the National Association of Fraternal Insurance Counsellors and I was having a particularly difficult time falling asleep. The changes in the time zones coupled with me just being me, cranky and not travel-friendly these days, were making it difficult for me to fall asleep. This was the second leg on a five city speaking tour for me and I was already grumpy.

The speech went well. I had bumped into an old friend, Jay Overbay, who is with the Woodman of the World in Lexington, SC. He was also one of the speakers and an attendee at the meeting.

Every time I address an audience, I speak of my Lexington roots. I suspect 90% of my material is about the lessons I learned growing up there.

This particular night, I was tossing and turning. Las Vegas is not my idea of a fun place to go. I don't gamble and I'm not a fan of the concrete strip. I've actually flown to Vegas early in the morning, delivered a mid-day speech and gotten back on a plane and returned home to Orlando on a red-eye to be at my desk at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. That tells you how much I hate Vegas. It reminds me of a gigantic ashtray.

As I was dozing off, I was revisiting my speech and some of the stories I'm fond of telling. When I was ten years old, I worked at my uncle's grocery store, Mack's Cash & Carry on West Main Street in Lexington. They also sponsored a Pee Wee League baseball team.

We were known as the Mack's Meat Heads. My uncles, Arthur and Eli Mack, were legends in the Lexington community. Their Hormel Western Beef steaks were considered to be the very best around. They paid particular attention to making sure the quality of all their meat was always nothing but the best.

To get to sleep this particular night, I was fondly recalling the championship of Lexington. All the merchants in Lexington closed the stores at noon on Wednesday so that the townsfolk could journey to the local baseball diamond behind what is now the Lexington Middle School on North Lake Drive to watch the kids play. In those days, they took time to smell the roses.

We were undefeated and heading into the championship game this particular July afternoon. The Mack's Meat Heads were playing the Harman's Pill Rollers for the Pee Wee League Championship of Lexington.

R.B. Harman was our local pharmacist and his Harman's Drug Store on Main Street Lexington right next to where the old Lexington Court House sponsored a team as well.

Two hundred of the towns finest had shown up for the championship game. I was pitching and Grover Ray Revels was my battery mate behind the plate. I don't even recall how much we won by, but to have 200 of our fellow Lexingtonians looking on was a real thrill for a ten-year-old kid.

We won the championship and my granddaddy, Elias S. Mack, Sr., known affectionately as "Jew Mack," hosted the barbecue behind his home next to our house on South Lake Drive, the current site of the Lexington Town Hall. It would be the last time my Jiddo (Lebanese for grandfather) would cook for us. He died later that summer.

I remember how proud he was of the Meat Heads. Most of the 200 people who witnessed the game also came to Jew Mack's home afterward to have some grilled burgers and hot dogs, including all the members of the Harman's Pill Rollers.

Such were the happy moments of growing up in the quaint little town of Lexington, SC. When I'm having trouble falling asleep in far away places, I find peace in those memories.