One of the things I remember from years ago being from Century was Blackcat football. For years after we got out of high school, Friday night during the fall always meant following those Century Blackcats to places near and far for some great football action. Sometimes the trips to or from the games had their own version of excitement.
I was the one that usually did the driving to and from the games. One of the high points of our trips was to stop and enjoy a good meal at some restaurant along the way, either before or after the game. We had gone to a game around Chipley one time and waited to after the game to eat. After we ate we started our trip back to Century, having just ate a big meal most everyone was already sleeping pretty good. Suddenly the person sitting directly behind me jumped up and slapped me on the back of the head shouting watch that car coming over the hill, just about scared the daylights out of me, you could tell by his voice he was very serious.
After almost running off the road and getting myself back together I ask what car and what hill. We were on one of those long flat stretches of highway in Walton county and there wasn't a car or hill within five miles of us. He said, “I must have been dreaming.”
Sometimes there would be more of us than could fit in one car and we would take two. When we did this and we stopped to eat everyone from the same car would sit at the same table, the ones from the would always sit at a separate table. There was a reason for this, someone at each table would be listening to the other people at other tables, he would be listening for things like a person's name, where he worked the names of his children and most anything in general. When one of us got this information we would signal to someone at the other table to meet in the restroom. We would give this information to the other person, when the people at the other table started to leave or if we were leaving then the person across the restaurant would go meet the victim call him by name, ask if he still worked at what ever place he worked at, call his wife by name and ask how she was doing and ask about the kids by name if he had them. Since the victim had never seen this person before he was already questioning his memory.
The person would usually say something like I worked with you for just a few months but I do remember you. Most of the time you would see this person leaving the restaurant looking back often, and scratching his head trying to remember the person that knew so much about him.
Coming back from one game, I believe the game was at Bonifay, our old station wagon broke down right about the middle of Blackwater State Forest. We were sure that with all the people returning to Century that night someone would stop and take us back to Century. Several people did stop but they had so many people in the car with them the only way you could have went with them would be in the trunk or as hood ornament.
Since it was Friday all but one of us didn't have to go to work the next day, and the one that had to work was getting nervous about being home in time to go to work. He had made the statement that it didn't matter who it was, the next car going west that stopped and offered us a ride he was going with them. Well, it wasn't long before a car pulled up and he walked up to it, they rolled the window down and the marijuana smoke just boiled out of the car with the smell of alcohol, they ask, “hey man you need a ride” he told them “no thank you” and went and sit down in the station wagon.
Of course the rest of us gave him a hard time about it until the next game. My bother was playing football for Century at the time and after they got back to the school he came back and got us. The Alger Sullivan Historical Society meets the third Tuesday of the month at the Leach House Museum in Century at the corner of 4th street and Jefferson Avenue, come join us and consider becoming a member.
