Back in the late eighties, I had the privilege of giving the keynote address for a meeting of Department of Agriculture heads from all over the country in Charleston, S.C.

I was on the dais with the late Senator Strom Thurmond, who was the host Senator for the affair. He and I were both addressing the group in an after dinner speech format.

I had first met Senator Thurmond over the phone in August of 1978. I had just one the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters International in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I had no sooner disembarked from my flight back into the Columbia Metropolitan Airport and returned home to Lexington when I got a phone call from the Senator congratulating me on winning. Ironically, no one by my wife (so I thought) was aware that I had won, but somehow the Senator learned of it and made it a point to throw me an atta-boy. Despite you feelings about the old man's politics, Strom Thurmond was a master at constituency

When I was speaking the Department of Ag heads in Charleston at the Omni, I was telling some old war stories about my grandfather Elias S. Mack, Sr., who was Mayor of the town of Lexington when Thurmond was Governor of South Carolina.

My granddaddy was an interesting character. Old Lexingtonians recall him fondly by his nickname "Jew Mack." He was not Jewish. He was of Lebanese descent and was Lutheran by faith. Back in the late forties and early fifties, you were one of three categories of folk-- a white man, a black man or a Jew. He was too dark to fit in the light category and too light to fit in the dark category, so everyone thought he was Jewish, thus the nickname "Jew Mack."

His two sons, Elias S. Mack, Jr. and Arthur E. Mack carried the same nicknames for years as they ran Mack's Cash and Carry Grocery Store on Main Street Lexington. Junior Mack, my late mother's brother, followed in his dad's footsteps and was elected Mayor some 40 years after his father (October 14, 1947) by the same identical margin as the senior Mack.

It turns out that Senator Thurmond and my granddaddy were close personal friends. I recall hearing stories about how much Governor Thurmond loved coming to my granddaddy's house on South Lake Drive next to our home, which is the current site of the Lexington Town Hall. When my granddaddy's house burned, Governor Thurmond was the first guy there to help clean up the mess.

Governor Thurmond thoroughly enjoyed eating at the Mack household mainly because of "Queenie's" home cooking. He used to visit on a regular basis during his entire political career just to eat at the Mack's. Queenie was the nickname of my granddaddy's cook and maid. In all the years I knew Queenie growing up, I never knew her real name.

So here I am in Charleston telling "Jew Mack" stories and Senator Strom Thurmond lights up like a Christmas tree. As soon as my speech was finished, he pulled me off the platform and told me a story about my grandfather.

"When I was Governor, we were very concerned about the possibility of an attack on our country," explained the Senator. "So we wrote to all the Mayors to encourage them to build bomb shelters and to provide a written plan for what the people of Lexington would do to deter a possible attack. Your granddaddy was a practical joker, so he wrote me back. I'm going to send you the letter."

Several days later, I received the letter from Senator Thurmond that my granddaddy had mailed to him when he was Governor. "Dear Governor Thurmond: I received your letter. Here in Lexington, we have decided to take a pro-active approach to the problem. We formed a Chamber of Commerce and it has successfully deterred anything and everything that has come our way for years. Sincerely yours, Mayor Elias S. Mack, Sr.

That was a typical "Jew Mack" story. Another "laugher" came one night during a Town Council meeting. The council was arguing this particular night about where to put a stop sign.

My granddaddy was a typical politician and would not cast a deciding vote. There were three votes for and three votes against the placement of a stop sign. The folks on Church Street argued that "God comes first, we should decide." The folks on Main Street said, "If we could slow the traffic down a bit, we might get some business."

And so the argument went on past my granddaddy's bedtime. Still, he refused to cast the deciding vote.

Finally, after three and one half hours of debate, my granddaddy passed out some chocolate candy. Ten minutes later they voted on the issue and went home.

The next week, the Lexington Dispatch-News interviewed my granddaddy and asked "how did you solve the deadlock?" He said, "I gave them some candy."

What kind of candy was it? "Exlax," he responded.