Harvey Michael

 (Audio begins at 00:02:25)

[Silence]

[Silence]

HELFAND: (inaudible). Could you -- could you say something?

MICHAEL: Oh, yes. Uh, this is the place where I grew up, this is the village.

(break in audio)

MICHAEL: Hmm. There are trees here that I never saw in my life.

HELFAND: (laughs)

MICHAEL: (inaudible).

HELFAND: OK, so --

MICHAEL: (inaudible).

HELFAND: Tell me again, uh, the house, that this is the house that --

MICHAEL: OK. All right, this is the house where I -- (break in audio) house 52, 00:03:00but apparently it's number 6. I can't remember.

STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: Um --

STONEY: You get him coming out.

HELFAND: (inaudible). Can you hear anything?

STONEY: Yes, I can.

HELFAND: Do you hear --

MICHAEL: Can you --

STONEY: Yes.

MICHAEL: -- can you hear me OK?

STONEY: Yes, it's fine. Yes. OK.

MICHAEL: Could have been, uh --

STONEY: We can uh, start on number six, and I can (inaudible).

MICHAEL: See, the swing is in the same place it was, and uh --

HELFAND: I don't hear him, George.

MICHAEL: (inaudible).

HELFAND: It's so screwy.

MICHAEL: Now, can you hear me (inaudible) it's maybe (inaudible). Are your ears warm, Judy?

HELFAND: My ears (inaudible).

STONEY: I'm sure you're fine.

HELFAND: I just can't hear him.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're deaf. Can you hear me, OK? One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

STONEY: (inaudible).

[pounding noise on mic, all speaking inaudible]

(break in audio)

(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: One, two, three, four, five.

HELFAND: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six. OK.

HELFAND: OK?

STONEY: No we're gonna get (inaudible).

HELFAND: OK.

MICHAEL: OK. I was saying earlier, some of the folks around here may have thought that we were a bit uppity, because I remember we built a white picket fence around this house, we underpinned it, we had the only house on the village 00:06:00that was underpinned, we did that with pickets, and um, we had a flower garden that won prizes, and even as a kid, I always thought of our house as like an oasis, because we had grass, most people didn't have grass, they just swept their yard, and we -- had grass and fruit trees, and grapevines, and my father worked hard to make it a beautiful place, even though it was a mill house. So we were proud of it, and happy to live here.

STONEY: When did he come to the village?

MICHAEL: Uh, he came when the village opened, I think maybe '24, 1924. He was uh, one of those that put the mill into operation, and uh, my brother was the first male child born on the village, and a young girl was born just a little before him, she was the first child, but my brother was the first male born on the village. We moved to this house when I was about five years old. And I distinctly remember it. My grandfather had lived in the house, and left here, and moved up to Alamance County, to Burlington, I believe. Um, and we moved into 00:07:00this house.

STONEY: How long did your father work for the mill?

MICHAEL: Um, he worked probably for uh, 20 years for this -- no, 18 to 20 years, because I think I must have been about 14 years old when we left this village, 14 or 15, and he had been here since the village opened. And um, so he worked -- worked here quite a few years. And uh --

STONEY: Yeah, and he never uh, was brought up into management?

MICHAEL: No. He never was, and I always considered my father one of those highly skilled workers, but he didn't have a lot of ambition for management. Uh, I think he came from a background that simply accepted uh, his position. I mean he -- he was a -- a fixer, which in itself had a little bit of prestige, perhaps. But um, he -- he was highly skilled in what he did. And uh, had very little 00:08:00formal education, but uh, he had educated himself enough until he could uh, calculate gear ratios, and so forth. Do the things that were needed to be done to repair complicated pieces of machinery. And um, I was never ashamed of my father and his work. Uh --

STONEY: Now, did your mother work in the mill?

MICHAEL: Yes, she worked in the mill until her health became bad, and uh, uh --

STONEY: Just hold it just a moment, I'm sorry, I'm going to ask you that question in just a minute. I want to wait for this plane and this car to go by. I know this is repeated (inaudible) told me, but it's in a different place and so forth, you know.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Yeah. Yes, my mother --

STONEY: (inaudible) just -- just a moment.

MICHAEL: OK. Now we get trains.

JUDY HELFAND: Excuse me. I wonder if it would be nicer if the background was the house.

STONEY: well, we could, we could -- yes?

JUDY HELFAND: Because it's real hot, the sky.

STONEY: OK, all right. We'll walk up there when it's time.

MICHAEL: I want you to get a shot of that walk, because that was the only paved walk --

STONEY: OK.

MICHAEL: -- in the village. Uh, I remember the day my father paved this walk and made those steps. And my kid brother and I were greatly impressed by it, because we was the only people that had a paved walkway up -- up to our steps. Of course, the steps were wooden, and they were wider. The steps came out as far as those posts then. And of course, kudzu covered the front of the house. And uh, kept it cool in the summertime. And that swing, I'd almost swear that's the same swing. (break in audio) But I was never really clear exactly what she did, I -- I became familiar with the card room, the carding department. But uh, she worked in the spinning room, and uh, I remember going to visit her at the mill, she'd come to the window and uh, lean out, she always had a -- a knotter on 00:10:00her hand. Uh, used to put up broken ends, and sometimes she would buy a sandwich for my kid brother and me, and break it in half, and hand it out the window. She'd buy it from what was called then the dope wagon. Now, of course, you -- do you know what a dope wagon is?

STONEY: Tell us.

MICHAEL: All right, the dope wagon, uh, it was called a dope wagon because they sold dopes, which is what we called soft drinks. Uh, in other parts -- parts of this state, they would call them ale. It's a uh, do you want to buy a bottle of ale meant a Coke. Here, we referred to them as dopes. That is RC, Pepsi, the real thing, I mean uh, any number of uh, of carbonated drinks were called dopes. And she would buy us a sandwich and we would divide it, and um, it was a real treat. And so, we got to see our mother leaning out the window at the mill quite often.

STONEY: But then your father and your mother, so it was -- it was a two income family even then.

MICHAEL: Well actually, I -- I can remember that we were not ever at least a three income family, because the boys all went to work. My sister went to work in the hosiery mill when she was 16. When each would turn 16, we went to work in the mill. And um, it was just the way of doing things, I -- I never got my paycheck when I went to work in the mill, my dad got it. And he would give me an allowance on Saturday. I never saw any injustice in that at all.

STONEY: Did -- was that delivered to him?

MICHAEL: Well, he was um, at that time, a section head in the mill when I went to work, and so he had everybody's pay in that department. And uh, and when he got my pay, he would simply put it in his pocket. And um, then on Saturday, he'd say, "Boy here's $3, or $4," and I felt blessed to have that much money, and then uh, I think it helped me to grow up with a non-materialistic 00:12:00view of life, and I never really uh, missed uh, having a lot of things. I -- we found contentment and happiness with -- with very few material things.

STONEY: You got out of this. How and why did you do it? Do you have any idea?

MICHAEL: I think it was because, when I came back from service, I went into a mill, now the employment commission sent me to a mill --

STONEY: Just a moment, we've got a (inaudible) I want to make sure that she gets this.

JUDY HELFAND: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: All right.

STONEY: Should we sit down here?

MICHAEL: (inaudible).

STONEY: Let's -- let's do it like this. Now when you're ready, I'll ask that question again.

HELFAND: OK).

STONEY: Is this a bad angle?

JUDY HELFAND: No, it's (inaudible).

STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: It's just a (inaudible).

STONEY: You -- you got out of this. Tell us about how and why you did it.

MICHAEL: I think it's because, uh, when I was in service, I saw things that were different, uh, that elevated my goals in life somewhat. And when I came home, I joined what was called the 52-20 Club. You got uh, $20 a week for 52 weeks. The Serviceman's Rehabilitation Act, I believe it was called. And they sent me to a mill, because the only experience I had was running lap machines in a mill. And I went into the mill, and I saw, from one end of the card room to the other, the haze, the dust, heard the noise, and turned and walked out, and refused to even be interviewed. I had to go to a hearing, and they wanted to know why I wouldn't take the job. And I told them, and I continued to get my $20 a week until I -- I got a job working as a bag boy in an A&P store, and started to college on the GI Bill. And of course from that point, I knew that my 00:14:00destiny wasn't in the mill, but it -- and if it were, that I would be in management, because I had intended to become a -- a textile engineer, and I had enrolled in North Carolina State, in the engineering school, uh, textile engineering school, but then I changed my mind and pursued other things in life.

STONEY: Uh, you -- we talked a little while this morning, and I just wanted you to tell me the story again, that um, when there was an attempt to get a union in the factory, in the early '30s, uh, you said something about your father's attitude, or general attitudes.

MICHAEL: Uh, my father was -- I guess you would say somewhat of an anomaly, because first place, uh, he was a Republican in a Democrat society. Uh, we got a lot of grief for that. He was an independent thinker, and also, uh, he felt uh, 00:15:00I think a strong sense of self-reliance, and if anything was to be done, he would do it himself. I think a typical response was uh, that sometime during the Depression, the elementary school gave us some, I suppose, surplus food to bring home. They gave me a large bag of greens, I think it was kale, I brought it to this house, and my dad came in and saw it sitting on the table, and said, "What is this? Where did it come from?" And I said, "It's something they gave me at school." And he said, "Oh, it's uh, something for the poor people, huh? Is that what it is?" And he got angry and took it out in back and threw it into the chicken lot for the chickens to eat. He said, "I won't have it, I won't have it." And even later, he wouldn't accept food stamps, though he qualified for them, he refused to take food stamps, he refused to take 00:16:00handouts from the government, and he refused to let a union do his talking for him. And some people say that was a -- really a Neanderthal view of life, but uh, that's the way he was. And the first union election that I was involved in, I simply had no choice, I -- I didn't -- I didn't weigh the issues at all. My father said, "You're voting against the union," which I did. And uh, I don't know whether it was good or bad. But that, of course, was in the '40s. And one of the sporadic attempts to unionize some local mill to get a toehold in -- in the textile industry. And um, I have a feeling though, or I had a feeling then, uh, that until one or two generations passed away, that unions would never get hold of the textile industry, because of the -- there were too many people like my father that simply refused to -- to go along with uh, having 00:17:00somebody else do their bargaining for them.

STONEY: Now we've seen -- since that time, we've seen two big changes. The first is the uh, so many of the jobs have moved abroad, and uh, the mass uh, mechanization of the mills, so that they need fewer workers. The second is the introduction of blacks into the mills. Now, could you talk about that, and what changes that brought?

MICHAEL: Well, I think that it's more or less a -- simply a continuation of uh, what's gone on before. Because when the mills first opened, trade journals advertised in uh, northeastern trade magazines that if those mill companies would move their business here, that they could guarantee cheap labor, 100-- or 99, [in '44?] 100% pure white Anglo-Saxon labor. Blacks weren't permitted in 00:18:00the mills. I made a mistake once of asking a black worker who ran the bale breaker to watch my machine so I could go home early, and -- and I almost lost my job over it. Um, so the mill was simply a step up in society, and it wasn't the black man's turn to step up at that point. But I see now that as people have moved out and industries have diversified, and uh, we've had more affluence in this part of the country, that this is their step up. And also, for the Orientals, the Hmongs, and uh, Thai, and uh, Vietnamese, who are coming into this part of the country, they find a step up in the mills. And of course, people who came from the mountains around the turn of the century, and got to move in a house like this, with solid wooden floors, a faucet on the back porch, 00:19:00a toilet tacked onto the back of the house, and free toilet paper, cheap electricity, uh, it -- it was quite an advance socially and economically.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And I'm sure that this is -- represents a -- a step up for other people. It's too bad that this is our first step, you know? And we have to begin somewhere, though.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: The way our society works, I suppose. You begin on the bottom and with hard work, you can work up. My dad always spoke highly though of the textile industry, and after 52 years, when he retired, he said, I don't know if I can quote him exactly, but something like, "The textile mills in this part of the country have helped me raise my family, and they've always been there when I needed an income, and I've always been willing to work." And in 52 years, he said he never missed a day for sickness, and uh, he was -- he was out when the mills curtailed during the Depression. And he'd come home and say, "We're 00:20:00curtailing," and of course, that meant get out and work in the garden, or find something else to do. Just down the street, my family made -- I think it was $10 for working several weeks building somebody's yard for them. We put in -- well, my father was proud of this yard, and people saw it, we hauled dirt in to level it, and so we did the same thing for this person, using wheelbarrows, wagons, cross ties discarded on the railroad, and we landscaped the man's yard, and all of us who were able to do anything contributed. So, we -- we worked together. My father had us practicing the same independence, I think, that he -- he felt was vital to him.

STONEY: What was his and your family's relationship with the -- with the bosses?

MICHAEL: Uh, it was fine. Uh, and it seemed that we uh, we have a respect here, maybe uh, I'm speaking from an older generation, though not that much older, but I have a respect for anybody who wears a coat and tie. And so, we respected the bosses because he was the boss. Uh, I never heard any animosity toward him, and his children went to our schools, we played together, were in Boy Scouts together, went camping together. But I realized he was uh, the boss. Uh, so far as the adults' relationship to the boss in the mill, I -- I really don't know how they might have felt about them at that time. But uh, we had uh, of course, a paternalistic system. And uh, and we fitted neatly into that system, they always looked after us, and I think the most graphic illustration of that paternalism is when Charlie McClain, a black man who worked for the company, pulled up his wagon out here in front of the house, and would say, "How many 00:22:00rolls of toilet paper you need?" And he'd bring them and put them up here on the porch. And uh --

STONEY: Do you know why the company furnished the toilet paper?

MICHAEL: At the time, I didn't, but later, when I could reason a little more deeply, I thought, septic tanks were always plugging up, and running over down the street, and I'm sure it was because of so many Sears catalogs being flushed down the toilets, and uh, good biodegradable toilet paper would make a difference. They weren't just being kind to us, but at that point we -- we appreciated it. Um --

STONEY: Now, we have talked to some -- we have talked to some uh, textile workers, and when we use the term lint heads, they bristle. Does that term mean anything to you?

MICHAEL: Only from where I've seen it in literature. Um, as I say, as I grew up, I don't remember anybody ever calling me a linthead to my face. Um, but 00:23:00uh, that's -- that's one of the derogatory terms I think used toward cotton mill people. And of course uh, to have lint, you had to work in -- in a cotton mill, in -- in the uh, card room, or the spinning room. If you worked at a weave mill, you wouldn't have lint, not that much, on you. But uh, yeah, I remember terms such as uh, cracker, of course, the crackers were from Georgia. And the sand lappers from South Carolina. And uh, the mountain people were called by various names, because that's where -- everybody here came from -- these folks came from Georgia, uh, folks down here came from Georgia, Dahlonega, and uh, my family had originated up in the mountains, and by way of uh, the mills of South 00:24:00Carolina, had worked their way up here. And um, then there were some local people that uh, were sharecroppers that were uh, invited to work in the mills. And I guess uh, the industry really was the salvation of this part of the country. If it hadn't been the mills, we didn't have coal mines here, steel mills, they were cotton mills, and it brought lots of money into this part of the country, and even though it wasn't evenly distributed, it was nevertheless injected into our economy, and uh, we got our little share of it. And --

STONEY: Hello. Uh, this gentleman used to live here.

HAMILTON: Oh, OK.

STONEY: And we're doing a television interview with him sitting on your steps.

HAMILTON: That's all right.

STONEY: I hope you don't mind.

HAMILTON: No.

MICHAEL: Are you Miss Hamilton?

HAMILTON: Yes.

MICHAEL: Well, I hope you don't mind, Miss Hamilton, I -- I grew up in that house.

HAMILTON: It's OK.

MICHAEL: A long time ago. Uh, do -- you don't work at the Eagle, do -- the people who live here now, where do they work?

HAMILTON: I don't have no idea. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).

MICHAEL: Because you used to live here, you had to work at the mill.

HAMILTON: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And now the mill's closed.

HAMILTON: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Yeah.

HAMILTON: One of the Stowe mills.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well this place has changed a lot since I lived here. This house has got a lot smaller.

HAMILTON: Yeah.

MICHAEL: It seems. But we appreciate you letting us just sit here.

HAMILTON: OK.

STONEY: Thank you. One final thing. We were, yesterday, at a big fancy house, Dr. White's house. And he -- his, the house is full of very valuable antiques and so forth, that all come from textile families. And we've photographed a lot of textile managers' mansions and so forth, and then we come to a place like this, and you see the difference between the way they lived, and the way they live now, and the way the workers lived. And yet, I've heard almost no 00:26:00bitterness about that among the workers, and I'm just a bit bewildered by it.

MICHAEL: Well, of course, being a child growing up here, I wasn't uh, impressed too much with those differences, you know, the social and economic differences. Um, I didn't know the difference between uh, poverty and wealth. Uh, some people drove cars, and others walked. Some people lived in big houses, and then some lived in small houses. But I think that I measured our wealth here at this place at that time by the happiness we knew more than by the size of the house. And of course, to a little child, this was a pretty big house. And um, sure, as I got older, I became aware of that inequity, but isn't that true 00:27:00everywhere? I mean uh, we -- we read that uh, the person who heads up a hospital gets a 70% increase in his salary, and people who are making uh, millions of dollars a year. You work in a bank, and you might be the chief executive officer of a bank, and make half a million dollars, or 6 or $7 million a year, and yet your tellers are living in small apartments. It's -- it's our society at work, I mean that's the way the system works. And it -- there's always, I think, that tension between what you are and what you can be that keeps us moving. And if you look at the man in the big house and say, that's where I want to be someday, then I'm enough of a conservative believer in the American way of life to say, go to work and you can be there someday. And uh, and I -- I 00:28:00used to think that I could leave this mill village and be what I wanted to be, and I did, and I didn't have a great ambition to be anything other than a teacher. So, I didn't have uh, ambition for affluence, but I know people who have left here and have become very, very wealthy. And I know one that grew up in this house who came back in a $100,000 motor home from his home in Sacramento on his way to Florida, where he's going to fly to Italy with his wife, he grew up here, you know? And he had the ambition to make the money, and he did. He's made lots of money. And he lives in a house as big as anybody's, and he started the same place I did. And of course, uh, I -- I don't feel that society has stratified us to the point that you're born on a mill village and you will die on a mill village. There are too many factors there that -- that 00:29:00belie that. And I think that uh, when we get together with our friends, some have moved away and done very well, and some died in prison. We're no different from anybody else.

STONEY: That's -- that's what makes the reunion so much fun.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: OK, thank you very much, that's great.

HELFAND: You had told me something about how at school, all the mill villagers went to school together?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

HELFAND: But that the Eagle was a little different?

MICHAEL: Yeah, um, this mill village is built away from the town, see? This was nothing but a red, muddy hillside, we had paved the streets and -- and planted grass, you can't see the true color. And these houses were splattered red with the mud, and we were kind of a rough bunch down here, I suppose. At least that's what the people uptown thought. And sometimes uh, you'd say, I'm from the Aberfoyle or the Majestic. Our mayor came from the Majestic. Uh, or 00:30:00I'm from the Imperial, or the Acme. Name some of these mills that are closer into the center of town. And uh, that seems to carry a little bit more uh, weight. There was sort of a stigma to saying, "I'm from the Eagle," and this is referred to as a mill hill. And um, it never bothered me though. Uh, I was a transcendentalist long before I ever heard of Emerson and Thoreau, and it never bothered me. If somebody said, "He's from the Eagle," with a kind of sneer, you know, sure I'm from the Eagle, and I'm proud of it. So, but this -- this village was out of town, out of the center of things, and we were much more of an enclave and a family to ourselves, uh, and we stuck together though. We fought, my dad fought the man next door one time, and um, he fought the man 00:31:00that lived down on the corner one time, he came home with his mouth all bloody, but we were all friends. It was just mostly friendly fights. And my uncle stayed with us, and he stole the man's chickens up in back, he even stole a chicken from us one time, and sold it to Mr. Elmore out here at the store, out toward the railroad. And then later, he stole it from Mr. Elmore, and brought it back and asked if he could fatten it up -- he tied a string on its leg to identify it, and then stole it again and sold it back to Mr. Elmore. And he was uh, more enterprising than Davy Crockett in raccoon skins. And uh, but uh --

STONEY: Oh, you've got uh, great stories.

HELFAND: You know --

MICHAEL: But chicken stealing was a way of life.

HELFAND: -- what about the lunches? You were telling me --

MICHAEL: Oh, well uh, when we went to uh, went to the local elementary school, uh, the mill kids would stick together. This is after the first grade, and I learned in the first grade that there was a difference between rich people and poor people. And because I went through -- I think, as I look back over it, uh, 00:32:00a rather shocking revelation when I followed two of my really good buddies one day at lunch, they disappeared every day at lunchtime, and I followed them, and they went into what's called a teacherage. The teachers lived on the school grounds, and I climbed up and looked in the window, and they were sitting at the table with the children-- with the teachers, two little children invited in to eat with the teachers. And I asked somebody, I said, "Why -- why is Andy and -- and his brother Charlie eating with the teachers?" Somebody said, "Well they're rich." And I realized then that they were brought to school in a black car, with a black driver, and that they wore little short pants, and white shirts with Peter Pan collars, and I wore striped overalls, and even at six years of age, I became -- I began to become aware of the difference. And so, we would eat together, uh, some of the kids from the mill village, because we took 00:33:00biscuits that would now be considered a delicacy, nothing but -- nothing but country cured ham on a homemade biscuit. And um, that's what we would have to eat, while the uptown kids had light bread, and uh, a little kid felt so sorry for me in the third grade, because he was from the Imperial, and oh, here's a poor kid from the Eagle, and all he has to eat is biscuits. And one day -- no, it wasn't the third, it was the first. One day, the little boy, his name was Rodney Simpson, I've never forgotten his name, but I don't know whatever became of him, Rodney came scooting down the aisle when the teacher turned her back, and put something in my desk. And of course we had to sit with our hands folded on our desk. Then when the lunch bell rang, I reached in the desk and I pulled out a brown paper bag, and it had a banana sandwich in it, on light bread, store bought bread. And I remember uh, that impressed me greatly. It was so good, and uh, since I look back on that, I thought so young and so sensitive, 00:34:00he thought -- he felt sorry for me because I had nothing but the biscuits. And he saw that that's all I had, and he took pity on me and brought me a -- a sandwich made out of light bread.

STONEY: OK Judy?

HELFAND: I just want to get a shot of you here.

STONEY: OK.

MICHAEL: I used to know every family, I delivered the Gastonia Gazette, the afternoon paper, my dad had the morning paper, The Charlotte Observer, and we delivered it for years and years. And so, I knew every family, uh, that -- I -- I could name them off, you know? (inaudible).

STONEY: I had a paper route as well.

MICHAEL: Is that right?

STONEY: In Winston-Salem.

MICHAEL: In Winston-Salem, what -- what --

STONEY: I carried uh, the Winston-Salem Journal Sentinel.

MICHAEL: My goodness.

STONEY: The Journal and Sentinel.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: And the Sunday -- Sunday was combined, yeah.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well it was a great experience, I -- my job when we delivered papers, because I was so young, was to carry the dog stick. Because we went out early in the morning, and had a little shillelagh that my dad made that we carried along, if a dog got after it -- after us, I'd hand it to my brother, who was bigger, and I'd get behind my brother then, and he'd fight the dog off, if necessary. But most of the times, we knew the dogs. Fritz lived down at the end of the street, and Jigs lived up there, and Happy down at the corner. And Mitch lived here, so I knew most of the dogs by name.

STONEY: It's interesting that that's the one job that I would gladly go back to, at my age, and right now.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: It's -- you get up early in the morning, and I get up early in the morning, when only a few people are on the street, so you feel rather special, and the people are individual people on the street, because they feel special.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: And you get just enough exercise, then you get back home, you have a terrific appetite for breakfast. And then if it's Sunday, a Saturday or 00:36:00Sunday, you crawl back in your bed for an hour.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: And that's the sweetest sleep that I remember. I could do that now.

MICHAEL: Did you carry the papers on foot?

STONEY: Oh yes, absolutely.

MICHAEL: You didn't ride a bike?

STONEY: No, with a -- with a satchel over my shoulder.

MICHAEL: Yeah, we had the -- we had the satchel. We never had a large route though, because I think there were 60 houses built here, I'm not sure. But um, generally the circulation was fairly small. Uh, but we must have made enough money to make it worthwhile for Dad to drive us out early in the morning to deliver the paper. And uh, but I -- I do remember that, walking around, and uh --

STONEY: Judy, I think we're -- OK, yeah.

HELFAND: Yeah, yeah.

MICHAEL: -- it'd be so uh, special, like you say, to -- to be out that time of the morning.

STONEY: I had a -- my -- I was in high school, second year or third year of high school by that time. And I was reading um, my English teacher had introduced me to Thomas Wolfe --

MICHAEL: Oh yeah.

STONEY: -- his short stories, appearing in -- in Harper's. And I fantasized writing about all my experiences, and all the people I would see along my route. As you know, as a paperboy, you get --

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: -- to know people in a way that you don't otherwise.

MICHAEL: Right.

STONEY: They come out in dressing gowns, and this and that.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, the difference between a writer and the rest of us, I guess, is a matter of observation and discipline. You've got the observation, and if you have the discipline, you write the stories. Uh, I know what you're talking about, those uh, unique contacts that you make with people under special circumstances like that.

STONEY: And the fantasies --

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: -- that you can build up about people.

MICHAEL: Yeah. But uh, it was -- it was really great. I come back here occasionally, just alone, and park my car and walk all over this village. I -- I did it a year or so ago, and I walk over to the creek where we -- where we used to go bathe on Saturday. Uh, in -- in the summertime, a bar of Octagon soap, and 00:38:00all the men would go over, and -- and would take a bath, it was pure water, you could drink it, it was so clear back in those days. And then we would come back, and then the ladies would go over, and they would have somebody on guard so nobody would sneak over and see them bathing. So we had to bathe in a creek. We didn't have to, but that's what we did. And my grandfather dug a spring, and I was down there not too long ago, it's still there at the foot of the hill over here, and (inaudible).

STONEY: Can we take a walk down there?

MICHAEL: Yes, you could --

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Uh, it's -- it's uh, rather remote, down at the end of a little ravine.

STONEY: I'll see if I can do that.

MICHAEL: If you -- but uh, my dad wanted to go back there shortly before he died. And so, we drove down, and he wasn't as spry as he -- he was about 82 at that time, he wasn't quite as spry as he thought he was. And he started down the embankment toward the spring, and he lost his balance, and then he had to start running. And he tripped and fell, I thought he had killed himself, but he 00:39:00was tough. That (inaudible) hospital in Charlotte to have him check him out. Oh, they gave him an EKG and no, he's OK, didn't hurt him. That's where the kids played.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And um, we had a community cow barn.

STONEY: Just a moment (inaudible). Judy, you want to catch up, and then we'll wait.

MICHAEL: And you know, I often wonder, uh, these -- the people that built these mills, they just must have cared somewhat for us, and our contentment.

STONEY: OK.

MICHAEL: Yeah. I think that the people that built the mill villages really had some concern for our happiness, for our contentment, because uh, when people started buying cars in the '30s, they built car garages, we called them car sheds, and um, we had community cow stalls over here, and um, that's where we kept our cow, Penny. 00:40:00Um, the mill provided that for us.

STONEY: Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL: And um, of course we built the pens that we kept our pigs in, kept them well away from the village. And uh, (inaudible).

STONEY: Now did the mill -- or the management have anything to do with your --

MICHAEL: Step down?

STONEY: -- have anything to do with your deportment?

MICHAEL: Uh --

STONEY: We -- in some places we've heard that the -- the -- that the second hands would check people who were drinking and so forth, so.

MICHAEL: To my knowledge, uh, there was no interference with uh --

STONEY: I think -- Judy, this is going to be too rough, so you just get that as you walk by.

HELFAND: OK.

MICHAEL: With -- with uh, our deportment.

STONEY: Start -- start that again.

MICHAEL: I -- I don't think there was any interference. Um, because there certainly was enough drinking going on without anybody trying to put a stop to it. Um, there was enough fighting. I do remember though that um, they tried to 00:41:00control um, vandalism. I guess you'd call it vandalism, anything that would destroy people's property. Various elements of law, per se, involved in the goings on here, at the village.

STONEY: Did you -- (break in audio)

MICHAEL: Uh, it looks like we might have to go through somebody's yard to get there, if we can get past these --

STONEY: OK.

MICHAEL: -- dogs.

STONEY: These dogs.

MICHAEL: But um, we uh, we were pretty religious people. (inaudible) early '40s, I guess it was, some minister came and put up a tent between uh, where we lived and the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian churches. Uh, and it was a Fundamental church, and many of us started to that church, and so for a number of years then, I was associated with it, and my family was associated with it. But there was never any um, uh, to my knowledge, any pressure from the 00:42:00management or from mill owners for us to espouse any particular kind of religion, or to be religious at all.

STONEY: Now, and what about voting? You mentioned your father was a Republican, but was there any pressure to vote a particular way?

MICHAEL: Well, since I couldn't vote, I -- I only got it by osmosis, and by hearing. Uh, somebody stopped me one time on the street, I was walking down the street, and this lady came out and threatened me physically, and she said, "It's because of people like your daddy that we're eating Hoover gravy now." And so, I didn't know what she was talking about. But I realized they felt strongly about the fact that my dad and his father, uh, were Republicans. And my dad had a very simple, basic view of uh, political philosophy, and um, it was something like, you know, you don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg, and in this country, the golden egg is laid by the people that own the 00:43:00mills, and that uh, that build the industries. And that uh, will take the risk, and uh, buy the land, and -- and uh, bring in the -- the people to work. And so, he supported that system, and then I don't want to build the mills, but I'll be glad to work in them. And he felt, as I say, it might have been a very simplistic view of Republicanism, but he felt that that's the way the Republican Party went. Sure, help the rich guy, because he's going to make jobs for us.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: But uh --

STONEY: We're going down to the spring then, Judy.

MICHAEL: (inaudible).

STONEY: (inaudible) don't try to shoot.

MICHAEL: The road used to --

STONEY: Don't try to shoot. (break in audio)

MICHAEL: For some reason, the -- the houses in this part of the village, uh, many of them have been torn down. Uh, I don't know, maybe many is uh, an overstatement, but at least --

STONEY: But this is the mill village here.

MICHAEL: Yes.

STONEY: (inaudible) here.

MICHAEL: Yes. We're still on the Eagle mill village. But um, the house I was born in was between those two big trees over there, and of course you can see, it's gone. And um, no respect at all. Tear down my birthplace, but uh, this is the way, um, to the spring. This is the road that I lived on. And there were houses all along here.

STONEY: You lived on this road?

MICHAEL: Yes, this is where I was born.

STONEY: Uh-huh.

MICHAEL: And until I was five years old, this is where I lived. And uh, I remember the trees, these uh, two bits of physical evidence that are still here. Uh, recently I came back and went down into that thicket to see if I could find some kind of evidence of the house that I was born in, and there's no evidence at all. It's all gone. Uh, not even a depression in the ground anymore.

STONEY: Well now we're going down to see (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Well, I'll show you where the spring is, and whether it's even accessible, I don't know, but on hot summer days, we would uh, come out this street and uh, through this area, and down to a spring. And I'm afraid that nobody but the bold would dare go that way now.

STONEY: Yeah. (inaudible).

MICHAEL: I can see it, it's grown up. But uh, it's uh -- see it's -- it's cleared out. That uh, the spring is down underneath this hill over here.

MICHAEL: Yeah, the spring is down underneath, around this hill.

STONEY: Uh-huh. And the lay of the -- and the pond was --

MICHAEL: Well, there was no pond. It was just a -- a -- an Artesian spring that came out of the ground.

STONEY: I see.

MICHAEL: And my grandfather dug it out, cleared it out, it was rather large. And some people uh, kept their milk in it, to keep it cold. Uh, we used to uh, pick blackberries and uh, we'd put the blackberries down in the spring in a bucket. And we'd go down to get water, it was nice and cold. And uh, but my dad wanted to see this, so uh, he was 82 years old or so, and he comes down through this trail, and um, just about broke his neck. But he -- he got to see the spring.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: I'm sure it's nothing but uh, uh, a receptacle for trash now, I doubt if you can even see it. I can hear the descendants of the same cicadas 00:47:00that I used to hear when I was a kid. Bet you can't even see it now.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: But it was uh, it was down here, dug back into an embankment, and uh, was such a nice place to play when we were kids.

STONEY: Judy?

MICHAEL: I don't remember --

STONEY: Uh, stop it, come right --

(break in audio)

STONEY: All right, you were saying.

MICHAEL: Right, this was such a nice place to -- to come and play when we were kids, and uh, it was so cool, but it was clean, and uh, you could always get a drink out of the spring. And over on the hill was a stand of beech trees. Now see, some of them are still there. Nice, smooth bark, an ideal place for a kid with a pocket knife to carve his initials. And I shudder to think now how those trees may have felt, but I see somebody has been carving on these maples here. 00:48:00Kids don't change. We got to reach for immortality one way or another.

STONEY: Yeah. Here it is.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

STONEY: Billy and (inaudible)?

MICHAEL: Uh, I can't read that.

STONEY: Billy and April?

MICHAEL: Might be April.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: That's -- that's --

STONEY: Come get a close look there.

HELFAND: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: But I checked out the dates, somebody wrote "Keep out" on this tree.

STONEY: Could you say Billy and April?

MICHAEL: (inaudible). Billy and April. Somebody that I don't know, and they don't know me.

STONEY: But a slight outline of a heart.

MICHAEL: So we get the message. Some things never change, do they.

STONEY: OK. (inaudible). That's beautiful. This is worth the trip. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). We didn't know this was going to happen, but --

MICHAEL: But isn't this a -- a nice cool place here?

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: It's too bad, you know, that --

STONEY: Yeah. (inaudible).

MICHAEL: No, this is -- something else. Yeah.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Oh yeah. No, often it was fairly sanitary.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: No, you didn't -- we didn't have near so much to throw away.

STONEY: I can remember, I used to [go to the store?] with my father. And he -- he was a kind of a (inaudible). (break in audio) So, you knew everybody who lived in these houses?

MICHAEL: Uh, yes, at that time, in each. (break in audio) But this is the street I played on, you know, as your world gets bigger, you move to longer streets, but as a kid, this was a -- a pretty big world. And uh, what appears to be little rises in the ground now were high embankments then.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Oh yeah. And uh, I hit a little girl in the head with a -- the lid of a lard bucket, before Frisbees were ever invented, I threw it at her, and she turned just in time to get hit between the eyes. And I still remember her mother saying that I ought to be beat for that. That's where, when I was a kid, Uncle 00:51:00Tom London lived there. And uh, interesting man. Well, I see somebody's -- beware of the dog.

STONEY: What is that? Is that a --

MICHAEL: Raccoon, my goodness.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Whose raccoon are you, huh?

STONEY: It must be a pet.

MICHAEL: Yeah, he obviously belongs to somebody.

STONEY: Isn't that nice?

MICHAEL: (laughter) I've always thought of myself as a raccoon, you know?

STONEY: How old is that one?

MICHAEL: I don't know, he's just a young one, though.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: He's obviously a pet, because --

STONEY: Because he's -- he's so easy with you, sure.

MICHAEL: Yeah. I wonder where he belongs. Some dog'll get him.

STONEY: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Especially, the sign says beware of the dog, I wonder if we ought to take him with us.

STONEY: I guess we'd better.

MICHAEL: I don't want to take anybody's pet. Go home. Maybe he knows where he's going. (laughter)

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Well, if he follows us, we'll just have to take him home.

STONEY: Yeah. He's following us.

MICHAEL: (laughter) Oh.

STONEY: That wouldn't happen in New York City.

MICHAEL: No, I doubt it. Oh. I've never seen it happen anywhere.

STONEY: Yeah. I have.

MICHAEL: Being followed by a raccoon. Seeing that motorcycle reminds me of uh, an uncle, an uncle -- my Uncle Claude's brother, who was a -- I don't know how to describe him, really a free spirit. (break in audio)

STONEY: Maybe these kids'll know whose it is.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Maybe we can ask them.

STONEY: Do you know whose raccoon this is?

KID: Yes.

MICHAEL: Whose is it.

KID: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Do you -- could you take it to him?

KID: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Come here. You hate it?

KID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Oh, he's a sweet thing.

KID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: See there? (laughter)

KID: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Oh. (laughter) Oh.

STONEY: And this is the --

MICHAEL: Yeah, this is a new part of the mill, here. Wasn't here when I grew up. Yeah. Spinning room was down on this end of the mill, the card room down on the other end. And uh, R.L. Stowe Mills.

STONEY: OK, Judy.

MICHAEL: The -- the original part of the mill, the -- the front of it, is uh, around that way, facing south.

STONEY: Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL: And uh --

STONEY: Judy, just give us a thing, from here across the stone thing, and then (inaudible).

HELFAND: OK. You might want to come back (inaudible).

STONEY: OK, all right, OK. All right, then we'd better go up, because it's getting late. How are you doing?

HELFAND: Fine.

STONEY: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: The (inaudible) of the kids to climb. And uh, a -- a guy made a parachute one time, and climbed up on this thing, and not all the way, but part of the way, and jumped off. And luckily he wasn't hurt, because he -- he became a good artist later, and he was a cartographer in the Army during the Second World War. But um, the water tanks were sort of uh, a real magnet for kids who wanted to do something dangerous. And now -- now they ride fast bikes. On December the 8th, 1941, after -- right after Pearl Harbor Day, we had uh, two 00:56:00men tried to kill themselves, but they weren't really serious about it, they had an A Model Ford, and they'd come down the hill, and turned this corner. And then they would go up, and they'd turn it again. Playing kind of chicken.

STONEY: Oh yes.

MICHAEL: And finally, they rolled it over on its side, and I think a few days later, they went off to service. A lot of guys left right after December the 7th. (break in audio) Uh-huh. That's where the tent was. See where the church is now?

HELFAND: (inaudible).

MICHAEL: Beg your pardon?

HELFAND: Was your [mother-in-law?] in the union?

MICHAEL: Yes, she was uh, in the union, and uh, was convinced that the right thing to do was to go out on strike. And uh, I've heard her tell the story a number of times. But uh, the lady that talked her into joining the union and going out on strike, crossed the picket line to go to work. And my mother-in-law said, "I thought we were going on strike," and she said, "Don't you touch me, I'll cut you." (laughter) And she said, "I finally realized that what she wanted was my job." (inaudible).