The lure of the ocean and the glamour attached to the sailor’s life induced 16-year-old Reid Anderson to desert his job in a Chester, S.C., cotton mill and come to Charlotte to enlist in the navy, making the trip on a side door Pullman car.
The recruiting officer in Charlotte signed the lad and sent him to Raleigh to be examined. In Raleigh, it was found that his physical qualifications were not sufficient, and he was sent back to Charlotte.
So it was that without any money, tired and hungry, not having had a square meal in three days, a stranger in a strange land, he came to steal a watermelon. Young Anderson was in the railroad yards waiting for a homebound freight when a passing negro called his attention to the apparent delectability of a carload of watermelons. In order to satisfy his hunger, he pried open an end of the car and stole a melon. An officer passing at the time, arrested the boy, who told his story in police court Monday morning.
The judge gave a verdict of guilty with a suspended judgment, and turned Anderson over to the police force. The officers gave him a square meal and brought him a ticket to Chester with the assurance that he has been completely cured of the wanderlust.
From The Charlotte News, July 17, 1922
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