Lindsey Graham jokes that this small town where he grew up is just like Mayberry, from the Andy Griffith show.
It certainly has that feel — but Graham only wishes he had a childhood like Opie’s.
The new presidential candidate lived much of his life with his family of four inside one room in the back of the pool hall and bar that his parents owned. And it was there that he launched his presidential campaign on Monday.
“It was the one room, where we all slept, we all ate, we watched TV. The sofa — everything — was in the one room,” his sister, Darline Graham Nordone, told me as we stood in that very room for an interview.
As Graham grew older, they moved into a trailer in the back yard, and finally into a house next door. The senator spent much of his childhood helping his parents — his father at the bar, and his mother at the grill.
The small establishment was a center of life in this mill town — the place where locals would come after quitting time to have a drink and play some pool.
“This is where they would come for their down time and have a couple of beers,” said Darline.
“The patrons were basically an extended family for us, they were like our aunts and uncles, and sometimes, being young kids, being mischievous and stuff, we were almost like the entertainment,” she said.
By all accounts, young Graham became quite good at shooting pool at an early age. He often played with a man who played with one arm. The other was lost in a mill accident. In fact, many people in this town lost limbs the same way.
This backdrop of Graham’s announcement for president could be just another story of a politician from humble beginnings who made good through grit and determination.
But for Graham, this is also a setting, and a story, of painful memories.
When he was a 21-year-old college student, his father, known locally as “Dude,” dropped dead of a heart attack inside their house, just 15 months after his mother died of cancer.
Not only was Graham an orphan, so was his sister Darline, then just 13 years old.
“He never said, ‘why did this happen to me,’ he just kept going over in his mind how he was going to do the things he wanted to do, because he understood first and foremost he had to preserve his family,” recalled his childhood friend, Thomas Von Kaenel. “And the only thing left in his family was his 13-year-old sister.”
For a while, Darline went to live with an aunt and uncle, and Graham came home from school every weekend to keep the bar and restaurant afloat, but it wasn’t going so well.
“You could see that the business was going down because he wasn’t there all the time to make it a growing concern,” says Von Kaenel.
Eventually he was forced to sell it, as he prepared to go abroad with the Air Force.
Graham also did something highly unusual: He adopted his sister, to ensure that he could take care of her and that she could get his military benefits.
“At first idea was a little odd but I was like, you know, it makes perfect sense and I just trusted his judgment, I knew he was doing what was best for us,” said Darline.
Graham and his sister live nearby, but still don’t come back to this building together that often. The trauma of losing their parents so young still haunts them.
They did come, though, the night before his presidential announcement to shoot pool. Darline is quick to point out that the bar now is a lot nicer than when they were growing up.
In fact, the house next door — where his father died — is now a restaurant.
The new owner, Greg Dimitri, took over six months ago and invited Graham to the ribbon cutting.
He asked Graham to name his favorite dish — to which the senator, known for simple taste in food, quickly replied “chicken parmesan.”
On the menu, it is now called the “Lindsey Graham Chicken Parmesan”
“That thing sells like hot cakes,” said Dimitri.
Dimitri said he hasn’t known Graham that long, but was struck by how approachable he is.
“He doesn’t have an entourage around him, but he’s just a regular guy,” he said.
Randal Wallace, who traveled from Myrtle Beach where he serves on the city council, has been friends with Graham for more than 20 years — since he worked on Graham’s first run for the House of Representatives in 1994.
He says Graham has never changed.
“He’s a common everyday person, and that’s because of these humble beginnings, ” said Wallace.
As for Graham, he doesn’t talk much about those beginnings, or his challenges after losing his parents.
But as he declared his candidacy for commander-in-chief, he embraced it.
“There are a lot of so-called ‘self-made’ people in this world. I’m not one of them,” Graham told the gathered crowd. “My family, friends, neighbors and my faith picked me up when I was down, believed in me when I had doubts. You made me the man I am today.”
“I’m a man with many debts to my family, to you, to South Carolina and to the country. I’m running for president to repay those debts, to fight as hard for you as you fought for me,” he said.