Not many people currently living in Denver, NC can say that they remember the Phillips 66 on the corner of Hwy 16 & 150. Nor can they remember the Dairy Center or Foxfire convenience store. The house that I grew up in was right on Hwy 150 about 1.5 miles east of this intersection. I can remember riding the lawn mower from my house all the way up the street to my grandparents’ house which was right beside of Howard Furniture store (which is still there today). During the summer, I would mow several lawns along the way. I would always stop and play basketball at the Bradley’s house and then a group of us would get together to play softball on the field behind the furniture store.
Those that haven’t lived here for 30+ years would never know just what kind of memories the softball field behind Howard Furniture Store hold. There was a team that practiced and played there that travelled all over the nation playing in the highest competition level there was in softball. They had so many National Championships that I think we just stopped counting. They played double headers against local teams every Tuesday and Thursday night on the field behind the furniture store and hundreds of people would come out to watch. They would see homerun after homerun that left thousands of dents in the metal warehouses that held the furniture store inventory. If you are driving along Hwy 150 and see Howard Furniture Store, you have to pull in and go around back just to see the field and look at all of the dents.
My grandfather (the owner of the team) paid me 10 cents per homerun ball that I found and threw back in during each of the games during the week. Needless to say, at 10 to 12 years old, I had a pretty good stream of money coming in during the summer. I loved it and you could not pry me away from the field if they were practicing or playing. When I was 13, I began helping sell souvenirs at the home games and when we travelled to tournaments. We had bats, gloves, t-shirts, and hats and I was in charge of making sure that we had the inventory to take with us to the tournaments and I did all of the ordering. I guess this was my first opportunity to see if I had any entreprenural skills at all. I don’t even remember getting paid and I probably didn’t but I just loved being involved with the team. I think this is the year that we made it big and were on PM Magazine — which was big time for the town of Denver which at the time had just hit 500 full time residents. During the next few years I remember meeting some pretty famous people due to our ties with the softball team — I still have the autographed picture of me and Joe Theisman (quarterback for the Washington Redskins at the time).
You may ask, what does this have to do with real estate? Well, I have roots to the area and I have seen many businesses come and go over the last 36 years. Sometimes sharing our personal experiences just may be what will interest someone enough to look a little further into the Lake Norman area.
I am sure you will hear more about my personal experiences in the future.
Thanks for reading…
