Mount Pleasant commuters got absolutely giddy in 1969 about their commute home over the three-year-old Silas Pearman cantilevered bridge.

Yet, that first ascent that traversed Town Creek was known to truckers as the steepest incline between Miami and New York. If caught behind a chug-along container truck, however, you could easily zip around in the second eastbound lane.

Few traffic lights delayed us as we sped toward the newest and most desirable subdivision in the Lowcountry — Snee Farm Country Club.

Amidst pushed-up piles of bulldozed pines and underbrush, a splendid club house was taking shape.

 That elegant and historical suburban venue was rivaled only by the equally prestigious Coldstream Country Club then unfolding in Columbia — and Charlie Fraser’s Harbor Town on Hilton Head.

When anyone mentioned developers, the names Griffith, Fraser, and Mungo topped the list, and all were South Carolinians committed to preserving the environment.

An aerial view of Mount Pleasant in 1969 revealed thousands of acres of coastal pines on both sides of Old Georgetown Highway. Boone Hall was truly in “the boonies.” Visitors remarked of the numerous pecan trees with few realizing that Mount Pleasant once boasted the world’s largest pecan plantation. Truck farming by Heath Farms and dozens of smaller operations engaged so many Mount Pleasant residents that we resembled upstate farming communities. Tractors were a common sight.

Coleman Boulevard was two-lane and the stretch from the bridge to Douty’s station was a pine forest. Montgomery-Rowell Hardware store had just opened.

No one had heard of “Happy Hour on the Creek” — except shrimpers sipping a cold one on the dock after a long day on the water.

The last yachts anyone remembered on the Creek had been the rum runners in the 1920s. Kenny’s Department Store on Pitt Street and Doscher’s Red and White on Coleman made our little town self-sufficient. If Doctors Durst, Ward, and Pickett couldn’t get you back on your feet again, then you’d better call Stuhr’s or McAlister’s.

There were 14 major daily newspapers in South Carolina, then, and The News and Courier was the queen of the dailies, the oldest, and, in the opinion of many, the most conservative. However, the writings of the late Tom Waring of the News and Courier make for interesting reading when laid side-by-side with those of the late Bill Workman of The State.

Both men were “heavy-lifters” for South Carolina’s emerging republican party. Legend has it that Tom Waring’s influence was key in Strom Thurmond’s switch to the Republican Party.

Perusing the News and Courier of this month 40 years ago, we see quite a few of William L. “Bill” Walker, Jr.’s by-lines. The hospital workers’ and sanitation workers’ strike was in its second month with no end in sight. Walker, a Washington and Lee grad, recently retired as editor of the Moultrie News.

He began his career in journalism as one of J. Douglas Donehue’s up-and-coming reporters.

Frank Gilbreth, Jr., even asked Walker to stand in for him and write 3 of the “Doing The Charleston, Ashley Cooper” columns.

Besides covering the sanitation strike, some of Walker’s by-lines 40 years ago dealt with colorful assignments such as changing town codes for herding geese along the streets of Old Town Summerville.

The sports pages tell us that a new head coach brought an underdog William and Mary team to face 5-2 Citadel at Johnson-Hagood stadium.

The Bulldogs had a potent offense with conference-leading QB Tony Passender and hard-charging tailback, Billy Watson.

On defense for the Dogs was All-American linebacker John Small. There was little chance that Citadel would be reduced by the liberal arts boys of Williamsburg. However, young, skinny Head Coach Lou Holtz had tricks up his sleeve and El Cid took a fall on Parents’ Day.

Forty years ago this month the Greater Issues Series at The Citadel featured the Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy, Lt. Gen. Thomas Moorman. Sitting in the cadet audience was freshman “knob” cadet John W. Rosa of Jacksonville.

Who could have foreseen that 34 years later, Lt. Gen. John W. Rosa would be named Superintendent of the Air Force Academy! Military affairs were on the minds of all in the Fall of 1969.

The newspaper headlines of late October forty-years ago speak of President Nixon weighing his options in Vietnam, a long-drawn-out war that he did not start. Nixon sent Joint Chief of Staff General Earle Wheeler to Saigon to meet with General William Westmoreland about America’s dwindling options.

Public sentiment was divided over the war and Nixon sought an “honorable exit-strategy” forty years ago this month.

Meanwhile, upstate SC welcomed home a controversial war hero, U.S. Army Major Thomas Middleton. Mayor Lester Bates rolled out the red carpet at the Columbia Airport and presented Major Middleton the key to the City. Middleton, a member of the elite U.S. Army Special Forces Green Berets had been implicated in an elaborate plot to assassinate suspected Viet Cong infiltration leaders operating in South Vietnam.

A half-dozen of our Army Special Forces men were arrested on orders of the Pentagon for carrying out “unauthorized” killings.

The trial was sensational, and Middleton was dismayed by the charges brought against him a time of war.

At an impromptu press conference, he admitted that he’d been treated in a shabbily by being handcuffed and processed as if he were a common criminal.

Though Middleton was exonerated, he said that he and his wife would have to think long and hard about remaining in the Army.

In support of Major Middleton, popular author Robin Moore, himself a former Green Beret, ridiculed the trial of Middleton as a publicity stunt to please the liberals.

He said that the Special Forces were trained for just the kind of assassinations that Middleton was implicated in, and that he, Moore, had done his share, too — that that was what warfare came down to. Middleton received a hero’s welcome in his hometown of Jefferson, SC.

All was not grim in the newspaper in 1969.

The social occasion of the month October 1969, was that of the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Tucker Weston of Columbia uniting in marriage with the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Berkeley Grimball of Fort Mill.

 The wedding united all of Charleston and Columbia society 40 years ago.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. You can Vvsit his Web site at www.historyslostmoments.com).