I've said several times previously that there isn't a day that goes by without someone either calling or speaking to me in the store about their memories.
A good case in point was this past Saturday. I was in line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy when a lady from Union mentioned reading Reflections each week. Another lady in line, who was from Whitmire, overheard our conversation and she said the column each week brings back memories of living on the mill village in Whitmire.
During our conversation we all agreed it doesn't matter where we grew up, the people in the mill villages were basically the same everywhere. They were hard working folks who looked out for their neighbors and who shared the good, and the bad times, together.
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I mentioned last week about hearing from Michael Phillips who shared his memories of growing up on the Union Mill Village including him missing the sound the mill made when running.
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In the days before air conditioning you could hear the mill running from just about anywhere on the Mill Hill if the wind was just right.
You couldn't help but hear it running especially about this time of year because everyone slept with all their windows, and sometimes their doors, open in order to catch the night breezes.
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Hearing that sound was like breathing, you didn't pay any attention to it, because it was just natural and expected, but if the sound was not there, you knew it.
I've heard many people say over years gone by that it was difficult for them to sleep on Saturday and Sunday nights when the mill was shut down because they didn't have the sound of the mill to lull them to sleep.
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It's funny how you get used to certain noises. My parents lived on Thompson Boulevard and at one time I had to spend several nights with them when my mother became ill.
The railroad tracks are across Thompson Boulevard from where they lived next to the Coca Cola plant, but I would have sworn they were in the room with me the first night I was there. The whole house shook from the vibration of a train passing by in the middle of the night.
After that first night I didn't notice the trains again. *****
Regenia and I moved to Spartanburg in 1954 and rented a duplex in Converse Heights. After seeing the house we decided that was where we wanted to live while we were in Spartanburg and we made plans to move.
I had left Union Mill to go to work for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and we decided to move rather than for me having to commute to work each day.
We bought a new living room group and the day they delivered it I stayed overnight for the first time to straighten up the house. I went to bed on the couch and during the night I was awakened by the sound of a train although I knew darn well there were no railroad tracks within miles. The noise scared me to death. I came up from that couch like I had been shot out of a cannon to find myself in a strange dark room with no idea where a light switch was located.
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The next morning I walked outside and there, next to our yard not 50 yards away, was a deep gully with railroad tracks. So help me we had been to look at the house several times of course but neither of us had paid any attention to those tracks.
To make a long story short, that was the first, and the last, time a train bothered my sleep while we lived there.
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I don't miss the sound of the trains, but like a lot of other folks, I do miss the sound of the mill running.
To many that sound meant security, that everything was well, the mill was running and people were working, living, and raising their families all within its sound.
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I wish there was some way to describe the sound the mill made to those who may never have lived on a mill village, but I can't. The best description I could give is it was not a loud, roaring sound that was hard on the ears, but it was more of a humming sound that people liked to hear before going to sleep.
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