Foreword

I love to write. I’ve written some Sunday school skits, and a Christmas play. I’ve written some songs. I wanted to write somethin’ akin to a novel, but wasn’t sure about what to write. So my best friend and my editor on this project, Ms. Nancy Elaine Roark, suggested I write about the mill village in Marion, North Carolina, where I was born and raised. The mill was located in the community of East Marion. I had shared stories about it on occasion with her. She also suggested I write each chapter like a letter to my sister Susie. So, herein lies thirty stories, some short, some not so short, about growin’ up in a very special cotton mill village.

Every chapter is as factual as I could make it. I took liberties to add humor. The characters are all real and either relatives or acquaintances. I either loved or liked every one of them. I left off the letter g to a lot of words, because my sister told me a long time ago, I love the way your letters are just like you talk. We talk that way in the south, especially in the Blue Ridge Mountains. My editor says it’s written in the vernacular.

My editor, Ms. Nancy Elaine Roark has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. I thank her for her encouragement and desire to see me succeed with this fun endeavor.

To the Lake with Joyce and Bennie

Dear Susie,

One Sunday afternoon when I was about five years old, there was a crowd of our relatives gathered on Mama Flack’s front porch on Steep Street. This was often the case on Sundays. Daddy, Mama, and I were there, along with Aunt Joyce and Uncle Bennie. Of course Mama Flack and Uncle Claude, and I can’t remember who else. I’m sure when we left church we went to our house at the top of Steep Street and I got to get out of whatever dressy outfit Mama had made me wear, instead of my preferred Wrangler Jeans and a tee shirt, had Sunday dinner, and then walked down the street to Mama Flack’s.  Well, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Bennie decided to take me for a ride in their car. We end up out at Lake James, at either North Fork Boat Landing, or Burnett’s Boat Landing. At both of these boat landings there were these wooden, flat bottom fishin’ boats that fishermen could rent. Some people had their own boat motors, other boats were rented, motor included. Now, Good Ole Uncle Bennie put Joyce in one of these boats, which were chained to the dock, and he put me in another one. We weren’t goin’ anywhere so it was free. He would push one of us out while pullin’ the other one in. It was a fun time passin’ Joyce in her boat on my way to and from shore. I guess Uncle Bennie was payin’ more attention to Joyce that he was me because I had drifted a good ways from the dock. Well, Joyce realized it and panicked. Bennie, Steve’s boat is gettin’ away! Ever the hero, with no regard for his Sunday clothes, or his own safety, Uncle Bennie dives chest first into the lake. I can still see his pack of Luckys flyin’ out of his white dress shirt pocket when he hit the water. And the damnedest thing happened next. Precisely at the time that Uncle Bennie hit the water, the ever so long chain on my boat, which was actually tied to the dock, stopped me. He swam back to shore, reeled me in, and we headed back to his car. We swung by their house so he could dry off and change clothes. They rode me around forever, stoppin’ to buy me candy, ice cream, soft drinks, etc, just hoping that I’d forget about the incident at the lake. We arrived back at Mama Flack’s front porch to the crowd of family, which had grown considerably, while we were gone. And you know the first thing that came outta my mouth as I walked up on the porch was Uncle Bennie jumped in the lake with his clothes on! The porch erupted into spontaneous laughter.

Here’s another day in the life of Little Stevie Flack.

Your Brother,

Steve

I’m Hot

Dear Susie,

One Sunday afternoon, when I was four or five, we had come in from church. I had gotten out of the ridiculous clothing Mama had made me wear, and changed into my Wrangler Jeans and a tee shirt. We had Sunday Dinner. As you know even after the rise in gas prices, Daddy always enjoyed takin’ a ride in the car to nowhere or anywhere. So we loaded up in our 1950 maroon Chevrolet Six Cylinder Two Door Fastback Coupe and headed out. We ride around awhile, and in those days the country was a lot closer to town than it is today. So, we’re out in the country, and Daddy turns down this dirt road, which most of ‘em were then. I say, I don’t wanna go this way. Daddy replies, You want out? I said, ‘Yeah, just let me out." Well, he just stops the car and I get out. He closes the door and drives off with his little five year old offspring standin’ beside this country dirt road, beginnin’ to cry. They drive outta site, and I shore nuff start crying. Shortly, around the bend they come. Daddy stops the car and opens the door. I get in, climb in the back seat without a word, and our trip through the country continues. We eventually end up back at our house at the top of Steep Street or on Mama Flack’s front porch enjoyin’ uncles, aunts and cousins.

It may have been the next Sunday, or another Sunday soon after that. It’s time for another Sunday afternoon ride around McDowell County. Only this time, Claude and Anita come along. So, it’s Daddy at the wheel, Claude ridin’ shotgun, with me in the front seat middle. Mama and Anita are in the back seat. It was obviously late fall or early winter, because Daddy had the heater on in the car, and I’m right where most of the heat is blowin’. Rememberin’ Daddy’s actions when I had complained in the most recent past, I kept my mouth shut. Now, the farther we ride, the hotter I get. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m actually miserable. So miserable that I have tears as big as horse biscuits runnin’ down my rosy red cheeks. After what seemed like a lifetime, Claude looks down at me and says, What’s the matter, Heet? I cried back to him in the most pitiful of voices, I’m hot! It don’t take long to learn what your Daddy will do when you’re a five year old wise ass! Damn, he was a great Daddy!

Your Brother,

Steve

Home from the Chain Gang

Dear Susie,

Every school day, they got me up around 6:30. I got dressed and headed to the bathroom to pee, and then to the kitchen table for breakfast. We had to wash our hands in the kitchen sink, since there was no lavatory in the bathroom, which Daddy hated.  He had some sort of reverence for the kitchen sink. I think he saw it as the only sanitary place in the house. He conceded that we had to wash our hands there. No other place existed, except the bathtub, which was an awkward place to wash your hands. If he caught me spittin’ in that sink, you’d a thought I’d a peed in it.  Daddy usually brought me a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast and maybe grits to the table. I’ll never forget him saying Steve, don’t forget your vitamin. Every mornin’ there was a little round red Super Plinimum Multivitamin, bought at the Rexall Drug Store on Main Street uptown, (You know, it was always uptown. Nobody ever said downtown.), placed by my plate for me to take along with my breakfast. I still take a multivitamin every day. He was one hell of a good Daddy.

We lived on the Mill Hill, at 304 Third Street then, in a little three room house with the bathroom on the closed in back porch. I’m told that in the early days of the Mill Hill, or Mill Village as the uptowners called it. The bathroom consisted of an outhouse in one corner or the other of the back yard. By the time I came along, the bathrooms had migrated from the back yard to the back porch. Ours on Third Street was,