Pine State Creamery, founded in 1919 by Dr. Benjamin Wesley Kilgore, is but a faint memory to most Raleigh natives and a historic Southern icon of which, anyone under the tender age of thirty, has probably never known.  For those of us who have called Raleigh home for longer than we care to admit for fear of revealing just how old we really are, remember the old home place of this magic dairy wonderland where Tucker Street and Glenwood Avenue meet.

The two-story, Art Moderne building, so the more educated architectural enthusiasts among us have described it, still sits proudly in the same location it did when it was constructed in 1928.  This shrine to ice cream bliss that churned the milk so graciously given by the dairy cattle who once yielded the main ingredient for us all to revel in, has now become Sullivan’s Steak House which is quite fitting as this establishment is also a Raleigh delicacy, but also ironic.  Perhaps not as ironic as a Cook Out billboard I once saw in Johnston County positioned in the middle of a cow pasture, but, ironic nonetheless.

Needless to say, converting a dairy business to a steak house gives new meaning to the old saying “all gave some and some gave all”.

As a young boy, about the age where I began to believe that Santa Clause and his eight tiny reindeer may not actually exist and that girls really didn’t have cooties, I was introduced to two things that changed my life.  One being the little plastic cups of Pine State ice cream which some genius lunch lady decided would be a good idea to sell at my elementary school and two, the game of baseball.

I was not particularly fond of the small, oddly shaped wooden utensils bestowed upon me, which could also double as a tongue depressor, to consume this amazing vanilla delicacy.  Although I did not grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, I believed my ice cream should be eaten with one.  The second most important thing in my life, at least at the time, that caused little butterflies to flutter around my insides, was the love I developed for baseball.  The third would probably be my second grade teacher who I had a slight crush on.

West Raleigh Baseball Association, founded in 1958, created a little league baseball field with concrete bleachers, a little green painted concession stand and a press box which, at the time, seemed as tall as the Empire State building.  The field was small, with a scoreboard in left field and a flag pole just behind the center field fence which was the prime directive as each team would recite the Pledge of Allegiance before every game.

As an adult, watching young people recite this pledge to our flag and Nation, causes my heart to swell and my eyes to well up with pride.  I thought it best to include it in this little story lest we forget the words but, more importantly, the meaning of those words.  I wouldn’t begrudge you one bit if you felt the urge to place your right hand over your heart when reading.

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

This little dusty diamond was then, as it is today, considered the mecca of little league baseball.  This pint sized sand lot did not carry the namesake of any elected officials or an over eager sponsor, but simply by a geographical point, a small little slice of hardball heaven positioned on the western edge of town.  In some unconventional and romantic way, this place expressed an inclusion and love of the community that surrounded it.

Now, although the facility itself is still referred to as West Raleigh, the field I still cherish in my heart is named after Burke Brother’s Hardware. Simply, Burke Field.  This little hardware store, also in West Raleigh, carries the same nostalgia and prominence in the community as the field that bears it’s name.  Perhaps I will expand, some other time, on my time spent in that little hardware store as a boy where my step Dad and I had backdoor privileges.  I still shop there thirty-five years later.  The smell is the same as it was then.  It’s hard to identify but just like a hardware smell.  I often catch myself peering into that little back room that only a select few have ever seen.

I was seven years old, old enough to know the difference between a large mouth bass and a bluegill but not quite old enough to understand why my Mother insisted that a take a bath every day.  I was a stubborn child and because of that ill conceived flaw, I would run the bath, sprinkle some water on my towel as if I had actually submerged myself and emerge 10 minutes later hoping my Mother would be none the wiser.  Needless to say, I didn’t bathe much.

I was a bit taller than the average kid but well under what most women in my family would consider well fed, although I was.  With an old glove in hand given to me by a friend, freshly oiled and beaten to a wrinkled pulp with my fist until it was bruised, I, for some reason, found myself paralyzed with fear upon arriving to the field for tryouts.  I was not a particularly courageous child as evidenced by previous incidents involving neighborhood dogs, snakes, a bully named Jimmy, girls who smelled good with pretty hair and the refusal to ride anything at the State Fair that inverted my slender frame.  When God created gravity, he did not intend for anyone to defy it except maybe Neil Armstrong and those of his kind.

Fortunately, I overcame my fear and pressed on.  This is when the butterflies first began to flutter in my gut and I began to embark on the second greatest thing that changed my life.

Back then, little league baseball players still wore knee high pants, stirrups over their socks and consumed countless pouches of Big League Chew.  Grape flavor was my favorite, but if the concession stand was out, Heaven forbid, they always had apple flavor as no one really liked that kind.  I remember, after an afternoon of tryouts, I received a call from a man who introduced himself as my new coach.

West Raleigh was a competitive baseball league of which, at least in my mind, only drafted the best seven to eleven year old boys they could find.  This was no sissy league and I knew it.  In retrospect, this was probably why I was gripped with such fear at the time and hesitated to leave the safety and security of my step Dad’s truck.  This is where the introduction of the Pine State Creamery rabbit trail is about to end.

Six or seven teams comprised the West Raleigh league.  I believe I can recall them all.  The league included the names Kirby & Company, which was a local vacuum dealer, Furniture Castle, Christopher’s Hairstyling, Mark Anthony which then became Mitchell’s, yes the hair salon, Coke, Pepsi, both of which were the most feared and Pine State.  There may have been a MacNair in there somewhere too.

I’m not the best writer the world has ever known, far from it, but one would have to be a poor purveyor of foreshadowing not to see how this little story might end.

It was March of 1979 and I had just been drafted by the team that carried the namesake of a dairy delight, the creamy bliss of which I loved so much that had already once changed my life.

At the time, I hadn’t yet learned the definition of the word “destiny” or “fate” but perhaps that’s what it was.  I was just over the moon with excitement.  I was a new member of team Pine State.  The name above all names with regards to frozen milk, vanilla bean extract, cream and sugar.  The name on the orange and white uniform, with orange stirrups, that I would soon wear across my chest, was a name that instilled pride and restored my courage as if permanent and traumatic brain damage from encounters with a few neighborhood dogs and the occasional black snake could ever really erase.  My time had come and I was ready to embrace it.

As my memory drifts like a sailboat upon the open sea, my mind begins to focus on lessons learned as a child.  Some tasted bitter at the time, not so much like the soap that my Mother threatened to wash my mouth with on occasion to keep me in line, but like the sweetness of Pine State ice cream that has helped shape who I’ve become today.

Fellow teammates and those on opposing rosters that I met when I was seven years old still occupy a small room in my mind where I sometimes go to reminisce.  Kids that I remained friends with in elementary, middle, high school and college that I continued to play ball with are treasures I wouldn’t trade for all the grape flavored Big League Chew the world has to offer.

There were lessons learned on that little field we call West Raleigh.  Lessons about friendship, how to be a humble winner but also how to be a good loser.  Lessons not learned with a X-Box or smart phone.  West Raleigh was, and is today, more than just a venue where kids play a game.  It’s much more important than that.  It’s within a community where kids could be kids and in a neighborhood where we knew where your friends were simply by the number of bikes that lined the driveway.  A place where, when the street lights illuminated in the Summer months, we knew it was time to drop whatever mischievous activities we were doing and go home.

A free sundae at Dairy Castle for every over the fence homerun was just peachy keen and chipper fine as my Mother would say.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Jack Daniel’s Deli which sat just outside the ballpark where we would buy packs of baseball cards.  Not sure which was better, finding a Nolan Ryan rookie card or the little piece of gum that came in the package.

Life seemed much more simple then.  As simple as who could stuff the most Big League Chew in their eight year old mouth, win a game of pickle or earn the right to be the assistant to the mic man in the press box.  We played under the lights which made us feel much more important than we really were.  Our parents didn’t have the notion that we were the next greatest gift to the Majors, spectators were still allowed to share their displeasure of a call made by the umpires without being scorned for their, what some may call, passion for the game and all we brought to the ballpark was a glove, a good attitude and a willingness to hustle.

As I close the door to that little room in my mind, I am grateful that, even then, I was being transformed into the man I am today.  Thank you Pine State and West Raleigh for all you’ve meant to me.  As my Mother would proclaim, I have more good memories and life lessons tucked away in my heart than Carter has little liver pills.  Whatever that may mean…