The crowds hadn't yet arrived at Charleston 9 Memorial Park on Monday when Jacqueline Drayton introduced her son to the site where his grandfather died fighting a massive blaze 11 years ago.
They stopped at the memorial for Drayton's father, Charleston Firefighter James "Earl" Drayton. And one by one, they visited the plaques honoring the other eight Charleston firefighters who perished on June 18, 2007. Drayton told 11-year-old Shawndell Davis Jr. that those men were like family to his grandfather.
And she explained to her son how the park on Savannah Highway was once the location of the sprawling Sofa Super Store, where a small fire that started on the store's loading dock quickly grew to a raging inferno.