By Randall Hill

Sweat was beading on the brow of Danny McRoberts as he ran through his chores as an animal handler in Myrtle Beach. McRoberts, an Augusta, Georgia native, had been on the road with the Cole Brothers Circus of the Stars for the last seven years. As he worked to scoop large piles of elephant droppings, he scurried in and out and between the large beasts as they performed their tricks. As his large shovel became a part of the action, it was almost as if it was an unintentional, choreographed part of the show.

Many of the behind-the-scenes workers are the same as McRoberts. Under the large red and yellow tent of the traveling circuses, the crews generally try to blend in with the background, buzzing everywhere to install and set-up the rigs performers require for the show.

“Just call me Meatball the Clown,” says Meriden, Connecticut native Josh Dummitt from his perch 3 feet above the crowd. Dummitt was standing on homemade stilts fabricated while traveling between shows. The extra height of the devices seemed to give Dummitt, 22, a bit of clown confidence, as he is the show’s youngest and most inexperienced clown. Near Dummitt stood his co-worker and veteran clown Perolito Jahir. At 5’2”, Jahir was in direct contrast to his co-worker in both size and experience. Jahir, from Pereira, Colombia, with his brother Kellan Bermudez, were 20-year veterans with the Cole Brothers Circus.

The wind carried an aroma of Latin spices to a small tent away from the big top. Between the day’s two shows, workers stopped by the circus mess tent for a quick bite and a hot drink. An enclosed tent was fastened to the side of a travel trailer where inside two workers stood over several deep fry tanks and a large grill. In the tent area, portable tables and chairs held hungry workers as they conversed about the day. “The food is great and because of the workers, it mostly has a Spanish twist,” said clown Julius Carallo as he enjoyed his meal. That day’s dinner is fried chicken, white rice and tortillos. “This mess tent is the first to be set-up,” said Carallo, who performs as Clown Chips during the show. “They have to feed 70 people 3-times a day.”

Traveling circuses such as the Cole Brothers Circus of the Stars, complete with it’s traveling big top tent, set up their tent city in the smaller markets all along the East Coast of the United States. Their goal is to bring the circus to rural areas and away from the big cities where larger circuses stage shows in arenas. In its 129th edition, performers with Cole Brothers will travel to 100 cities in 20-25 states and stage 250 shows a year. Their claim is that they are the oldest big top circus in the United States.

Well into the second show that evening a heavy rain blanketed the area. Outside the tent, workers scurried to keep the rigs dry and safe for the performers. At first the audience and those inside the tent were unaware of the weather change but got a clue when the elephants performed with a noticeably darker shade on their back from the rain.

As the rain persisted, the entire floor of the big top was covered in water from the storm. Just as the last show of the evening was ending, workers scurried to check the rigs and start sweeping the water away from the show’s rings. These circus workers are always in a mindset to prepare for the next show. Everything is portable but has a place to be stored and found when needed.

Backstage after the show, motorcycle daredevil Eric Anthony, 18, was the hero to the circus workers. Despite a wet rig and an inch of rain inside the tent, Anthony performed his Thunderdrome routine for the audience. The Thunderdrome, a large metal globe he circumvents at high speeds on his motorcycle is dangerous enough without the rain soaked dome. As he got a hug from the ringmaster for his bravery, he stated to the workers and those assembled. “The show must go on.”

By Randall Hill

The rippled clouds loomed over the storied infield and pit area of the Myrtle Beach Speedway Friday morning as drivers and crews scurried to prepare their cars for the races later that evening. Crews dressed in heavy coats and stocking caps pulled tight over their heads gave the impression of a Nordic event instead of a springtime good ole boy NASCAR race.

Later as the sun started to warm the day and the winds subsided, the boys got down to the business of the day.

Most drivers and crew in the regional Whelen series of NASCAR were racing for the love of the sport. Most are plumbers, business owners, shop workers, guys who put in time working on their cars after their long day jobs have ended. Most have only shallow dreams of making it to the big time Sprint series of NASCAR.

“I never see my wife,” said Shallotte, North Carolina driver Justin Miliken. “I work all day at my job and then, well into the evening, I’m with the boys in the shop working on the car. But that’s what it takes to be competitive out here.”

Miliken and the others know first hand about the sacrifice the sport puts on their life and family. He and his crew led the majority of the featured race Friday evening only to crash on the last lap. Besides the loss of the $10,000 1st place purse, the team’s $40,000 car was heavily damaged and will need extensive repairs. After the race, Miliken and his crewmembers were shocked. The passion to win was so embedded in them, the loss was personal and like a death wake. Fans and family members were surrounding the driver with hugs of support as he looked off to the distance teary eyed.

Earlier that day Hartsville, South Carolina resident Bobby June had a different approach to the sport. Dressed in his blue and pink racing suit with “Tobaccoville USA” stitched across the chest, the 57 year-old driver relaxed beside his #13 car before a limited race. June supports his need for speed with sponsorship money from a cigarette manufacturing company he owns with his brother. He has been racing in the lower levels of NASCAR since 1978 and has noticed the sport costs a lot more now than in the past. “See that engine there?” June bends over and lightly touches the top of the engine compartment as if it needed gentle care. “That cost me $25,000 and it blew on the first race we took it on. She owes me one today.”

Tires are another big expense for the crews at Myrtle Beach and in the Whelen Series. A set can run about $800 and must be purchased from the track. Because of the rough racing surface at Myrtle Beach Speedway, it is common for crews to go through two sets of tires during a 250-lap race. That, combined with the price of fuel, means being a weekend warrior can be pricey.

Driver Ben Rhoads of Louisville, Kentucky holds himself with confidence outside his #41 racecar. According to the other drivers, the 16-year-old may be one of the few in the Whelen series that will get a chance at the Sprint series of NASCAR. From the pit areas he watches as crews prepare the car for the race. “I just got my learner’s permit last week so I’m now legal to drive a car in the state of Kentucky.”

Don’t take this fact as inexperience for the lanky teenager. He has been racing for two years and has a good sponsorship base behind him. Rhoads may occasionally help push his car or help move a tool but his job is to drive and his crewmembers are paid professionals.

The white #12 car driven by Asheboro, North Carolina resident Garrett Campbell is in the next pit area down from Rhoads. The sun reflects brightly off the matte surface of the car not for show but because of lack of paint. With no sponsors, the car is devoid of the customary sponsor stickers most cars have. At the fan meet and greet before the race, Garrett stands by his car with a grey hoodie pulled over his head. Children and fans flocked to Rhoads #41 car with autograph requests as Campbell sat quietly by his car.

Money brings in the fans and larger purses will bring in sponsored drivers. But most are here for the love of racing.

June said it best after he was asked how racing has changed over the years. “The only thing that’s changed is it costs more to race and the purse is less.”

By Randall Hill

In a thick strand of woods in rural Georgetown County, South Carolina, the self-proclaimed “Gullah Huntsman” Bill Green prepares for his latest drag fox hunt. It’s a cool day in early February and the stocky built African-American man sits comfortably atop his trusted horse.

“You got to treat these animals with loving kindness,” he says with a smile referring to the fox hunting hounds and horses he trains for these events. “If you don’t treat them well they won’t do what you want.”

Green pulls from a stained and worn saddlebag a wet rag tied to a long rope. The strong, pungent smell of fox urine covers the area around him like a cloud when he opens the bag. It’s an odor so strong one doesn’t need the olfactory prowess of a dog to detect.

On this day Green is portraying the fox in this hunt presented by the Middleton Place Hounds, a foxhunting club of Charleston. The club has traveled to plantation land in nearby Georgetown County owned by one of its members.

The members of Middleton Place Hounds take pride in conducting drag hunts where no live foxes are used or killed in events. With that idea, Green is hired to drag the urine soaked rag through the woods, giving the hunt club’s hounds a scent to follow and their horses a path to chase.

Meanwhile back in the horse staging area about a quarter mile away, Middleton Place members prepare their horses and sip sherry in red plastic dixie cups before the start of the hunt. Depending on their experience level and rank, there is etiquette for proper attire and colors to wear for the event.

Middleton Joint Master Frank D. Haygood of Charleston strokes his horse “Mr. Big Stuff” on the head as he prepares to place the saddle. The large white horse with speckled brown spots, takes a step back and then resumes its meal of hay stuffed in a bag on the side of the horse trailer.

Haygood is one of three leaders of the hunt and one of a handful of men who are members. He is wearing the customary leadership yellow vest and billowy neck garment with white riding pants.

“I’ll admit the clothes are kind of prissy but everything serves a purpose,” he said while harnessing the horse. “This necktie can be used as a tourniquet or bandage if you fall and have an injury.”

Soon Green takes off through the woods and lays a path for the hounds with the drag of the cloth. He adds to the scent by spraying fox scent from a plastic squirt bottle staged at his side like a cowboy’s pistol. Every few yards he will lay down a squirt from the bottle. A horn is sounded and the hounds, horses and riders take off in a quick pace into the woods on the path of the scent.

Later, non-riding observers sip on bloody marys and share hors d’oeuvres around a large fire pit as they gather in front of a plantation house about a mile away. In the distance you can hear the dogs clamoring as they chase the scent laid down by Green.

A half hour later, the riders and hounds emerge from the woods and gather around a large pond on the property. The hounds jump into the pond and drink to cool off from the run.

Green and his crew conducted five drags that day. After the fifth, the members dismounted from their horses and gathered back at the plantation house for socializing and a catered meal of flounder, cole slaw and yellow rice.

Joint Master Kathy Wall, wearing a black derby hat, is all smiles after the run with her horse. She seems at ease around the horses and friends that gather for the hunts. The group’s 75 members meet for about 40 hunts during the season that spans November to March in South Carolina.

The Middleton Place Hounds club was established in 1973 and has always been a hunt that involves no live foxes. “We just want to keep the tradition of the Fox Hunt alive.” She said. “Drag hunts give us the opportunity to control the hunt so we can better predict how long they will take.”

By Randall Hill

In a 60-acre field in rural Minturn, South Carolina, cotton farmer Roy Baxley, Jr. was on an important mission. His goal for this bright and sunny November morning was to get the last part of his 1,100 acres of cotton from the fields and to the ginning machines.

As he talked to his crew of 7 workers, the cotton pickers were adjusted and fine-tuned as the fluffy white plants hovered over the field like a large blanket. The morning light reflected low off the crops and gave them an even warmer hue.

Growing up in the South and living here most of my life, the lure of the fields in the fall and winter and the deep history the crop has on Southern culture, was too much for me to pass up. I had to find out more about the process and see it for myself.

The very thought of cotton brings to my mind images of slavery and the back-breaking chore the crop bestowed on the workers who cultivated it before the Civil War. Seeing the crop harvested today, with large machinery and sophisticated processes, gives this observer an even higher appreciation of their sacrifices. The work today is hard and difficult but one has to imagine how it was to those who harvested the crop in the past.

Farm worker James Grooms steered the large cotton picker through the fields with ease. I, on the other hand, held on with caution, positioned outside the cab and on a small platform, one hand on the machine’s railing in order to keep my balance. As the picker started the process of cutting and sucking the cotton from the plants, cotton dust and plant fragments filled the area like a cloud. The dust settled on my gear and after a while covered me like a layer of snow. After a few rows, I developed a system of cleaning my lenses before I took a photograph. It was not an ideal environment for photography.

About halfway into the third row, Grooms stopped the picker and shut it down. The collection bay was full and he had to wait for a large transport bin to come for his load.

During this break, I stepped down from the picker and walked through the cotton plants at ground level. Grooms climbed up a side ladder and from the top of the picker, searched the field for the location of his co-worker who would unload the machine. In this quiet, and eye level with the plants, I felt the connection to the history of the crop and a deep respect for the workers that carry on the tradition today.

Several hours later, the crew finished picking the field. The cotton had been packed in large modulars along the edge of the field. The blanket that once covered the field was gone, ready for transport to the gin to be cleaned.

Baxley was happy that the sunshine and low humidity of the day made the process run smooth and without a hitch.

“As pretty as it is in the fields,” he said as he walked by the last row to be harvested. “It doesn’t pay any bills or write any checks till it’s at the gin.”

Three days later and 10 miles down another country road, nine men work to clean and gin the harvested cotton at the Minturn Cotton Company. The ginning facility is owned and operated by Baxley and his partner Earl Alford, Jr. The two bought the gin in 1971 and have prepared Baxley’s cotton as well as the crops of other area farmers who grow cotton. This year the gin expects to gin about 20,000 bales of cotton.

The gin carries the harvested cotton through 4 cleaning stages before ginning. The machinery uses the same mechanical process Eli Whitney patented in 1794 but it has been updated with modern machinery and electricity.

Using air and suction, the cotton is pulled from stage to stage within the facility and a large network of tubes hover overhead. A heavy coat of cotton dust and lint covers almost every gear and surface in the building.

Felipe Rosales of Raymondville, Texas, operates the modular feeder at the gin. Rosales, with his younger brother Romeo, traveled together to South Carolina to spend the cotton season in Minturn. Both follow the crop as it is harvested in various states in the South.

The Rosales brothers are two of several Texans at the Minturn Cotton plant who bring with them their skills and expertise with gin operations.

I watched as the cotton traveled down a chute and into the gin where the seeds were separated. A steady stream of seeds bounced off a railing at the bottom of the gin and created a stream of trailing light as gravity pulled them through the process.

Gin operator Robert Espino of Weslaco, Texas ran his hand through the falling cotton and checked on the consistency before it was ginned. In a routine he repeated several times over the course of the day, he reached down inside the bottom of the gin and let the falling seeds gather in his cupped hands.

The seeds look like small white cocoons.

After ginning, the cotton goes through three more stages of cleaning and then air pushes the cotton to a press.

Four men, almost like a choreographed dance, take the 500 lb bail of pressed cotton though a series of stages until it is bagged and labeled and staged just outside the door of the gin. Cotton fibers and dust fly all around them and seem to be a planned part of the process.

Bagger Kevin Davis pulls on the bagged bundle and turns it on its end. Until last month, he was working as a commercial fisherman along the South Carolina coast but was laid off and found work here at the gin.

He turned the heavy load side to side to move it to a roller assembly and with a grunt, pushed it to the end of the dock.

Co-owner Earl Alford Jr., has seen a lot of cotton in his day. There is a painting directly across from his desk that pays tribute to the history of the crop. It shows bundles of cotton stuffed in the backs of horse-drawn farm equipment. Men dressed in overalls and wearing straw hats stand around an old 19th century barn.

Everyone at the gin is aware of the history of the crop but no one knows what the future will bring.

According to Alford, things are changing real fast and almost 80 percent of their cotton is exported outside the United States.

“Twenty-years-ago we’d gin it and the cotton would go directly to the local factories. Now they are all gone.”

Sweat pours down the face of Scott’s BBQ pit worker Willie Johnson as he uses a large mop to apply sauce on a rack of chickens cooking in the pit house. The smoke pouring from the sides and tops of the 10 pits in use that day hover over him like a white translucent blanket. The early morning light pierces through the blanket and forms contrasting shades of light that seem to bounce around the ceiling looking for a way to escape to the outside.

Johnson has been at the pit house all night, like he has done many times before, watching over the process of the 12-plus hours it takes to cook the BBQ at Scott’s. It’s very hard work to cook BBQ the traditional way they do at the Hemingway, South Carolina restaurant and pit house.

SLIDESHOW: THE LOST ART OF TRUE BBQ

Workers, mostly family members of owner Rodney Scott, have to gather and cut the large amount of hardwood needed for the process. The rear of the pit house contains a large supply of oak, hickory and pecan cut in large sections to be later split and burned.

A large fire is built in what is called a burn barrel. The fire is started at the top of the barrel and the wood is held in place by metal rods inserted in the middle. As the fire burns hot, the coals drop to the bottom and an opening allows the workers to scoop them up in a long handled shovel.

The pigs are placed on racks and put into the concrete block pits. Large stainless steel sheets are then positioned over the top. Cooker Terry Blow then takes the hot coals from the burn barrel and distributes them into the pits under the pigs to cook.

Blow watches the process with a confident demeanor. He wears an old baseball cap that is soaked in sweat almost to the edge of the brim and dons his Town of Hemingway uniform from his day job as a water maintenance employee. “I’ve been working in these pits since I was eight-years-old,” he says with pride.

About every 15 minutes the burn barrel is stoked, wood is added and Blow carries the red-hot coals to the pit using the shovel. As the night settles in during the cooking process, the coals seem to glow redder as the lowering light settles inside the pit house.

Scott’s BBQ was started in 1972 by Rodney Scott’s father Rosie Scott. The tradition of cooking pork was handed down through the family, growing as the business got larger.

“It’s all about the flavor,” Rodney Scott says as he stands outside the pit house the morning after the first batch of pigs were cooked. “Gas is for cars, not cooking BBQ.”

Later, more members of Rodney’s extended family arrive to continue the process of cooking the BBQ. The heat in the pits is allowed to die down and the whole pigs are turned over in the pits. The secret vinegar based sauce that has been cooking in a pot at the front of the pit house, is slathered on the meat using large sauce mops. Another pot cooks a supply of the South Carolina delicacy boiled peanuts.

Rodney’s cousin Larry Mitchell watches over the sauce and adds the vinegar base to the pot when a second batch is needed. “You know what they say,” he laughs with a deep chuckle “I’d have to kill you if I told you how to make it.”

Rodney’s mother Ella Scott and aunt Jackie Gordon take the cooked meat to the restaurant and take out the bone. They weigh the cooked meat into servings and sell it to the public.

“People love BBQ,” said Rodney Scott. A red cooking apron hangs over his shoulders tied in a knot tightly across his belly. “If there is a BBQ, people are going to go. If they see the smoke, you don’t have to advertise. They will come for the food.”

The residents of the small coastal communities along South Carolina’s Grand Strand feel the floors vibrate in their homes each year around the middle part of May. The cause is not natural in nature but man-made. For it’s the start of the annual motorcycle rallies that flow and ebb into the area each spring and bring in the start of the summer tourist season. It comes like a boxers hard punch to the face and floors the locals to the mat and into submission.

The rumble of the motors build as the first rally begins. Bikers, mostly comprised of older white males, ride Harley-Davidsons and other cruiser type motorcycles. They seem to be trying to live out their testosterone-filled dreams like the characters in the 1969 film Easy Rider. Most are bankers, lawyers, mechanics and other professionals who trailer their bikes to Myrtle Beach looking for an escape from the everyday experience they live back home.

The second rally, The Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest, is comprised of mostly young African-Americans in their 20’s, decked out on Japanese sports bikes the locals call crotch rockets. Most come celebrating the Memorial Day weekend with members of bike clubs formed back home. They dart in and out of traffic en masse like large swarms of wasps.

Covering the bike rallies over the last 12 years for the local newspaper and this year for Reuters has been a lesson in sensitivity and respect for those that are unique and different. The bike weeks bring out the extremes of culture for both whites and blacks. A journalist is caught between making sure the harsh stereotypes of culture are not carried on but rather that the truth of the events are told.

We see everything and sometimes things you don’t want to see.

For instance, this year during the Harley rally, during intermission at a Midget Wrestling event, there was a competition where ladies competed to see who could get a midget wrestler aroused. The top prize was $50 dollars and a photo with the wrestler. Beer girls in string bikinis took tips in their cleavage. Many were mothers trying to make ends meet with the extra money they earn during the rallies.

Most residents look forward to the rallies. The money the bikers bring into the area more than makes up for the havoc they cause. Residents endure the loud pipes piercing through neighborhoods as bikers leave the many biker bars early in the morning.

One such bar Suck Bang Blow in Murrells Inlet, SC is named for the stages of the combustible engine on a Harley. During day and night the bar is a hub for bikers looking for a rest from their rides. Inside bikers are treated to southern rock cover bands and scantily clad girls pushing Jell-O shots. The bar has a special pit out back designed for bikers to blow out their motorcycle tires. This ritual fills the grounds with a sea of white pungent smoke and cheers from those standing nearby.

With the extremes, the bike rallies are a dream for a photojournalist to cover. At each turn there is another photograph to capture and the events are never boring. We can’t wait to see what the bikers will bring us next year.