 |
|
Porterdale Mill on the Yellow
River |
|
|
Porterdale Mill on the Yellow
River |
|
|
|
DOWN
MEMORY LANE |
|
A few thoughts remain about the time we lived on lower Elm Street. I was about 12 or 13 and I got my first real paying job. I could now leave the table scrap money for Jeanette and Jackie. I was now in the big time. I had a paper route, the Atlanta Journal. This was a job that a lot of kids wanted, but Mrs. John Day of Porterdale pulled some strings to see that I got it. I had about 50 customers. The cost of the paper, including the Sunday Edition was thirty-five cents a week. I was paid based on how much I collected each week. If I was lucky, and I was not, I was paid $2.35 for the week, if everyone of my customers paid. This rarely happened. I generally got $1.75 to $1.90 a week. However, I didn’t complain for that was really good money. On Sundays the paper was extremely heavy. I had a little red wagon that I used to pull the papers around. Lower Elm, where we lived was about half way along my route and I could stop in and get warm in the winter. Mother said she always felt so sorry for me on those real cold days when I stopped by with my red nose. I hung in there and held that job for several years. When we lived there I was in the Porterdale School Band and I was trying to learn to play the Alto Horn, something like the French Horn. I played something called the Third Part, I blew one note about every 5 minutes. I guess I was so bad that was all the Band Conductor would allow. I finally gave it up. The neighbors were glad when that happened, since I sat on the front porch and practiced. While living on Lower Elm we had some visiting preacher and his family there. We were at the dinner table and the conversation was about what foods the kids would eat and would not eat. We were having fried fish that night. Mother stated that Prentis was pretty good about eating except that I would not drink butter milk. There was a large glass of butter milk sitting near me, I don’t know who it belonged to, but I grabbed it and turned up the glass and drank every drop. All the time Mother was yelling at me to put it down and stop drinking it. But I did not heed her warnings. The reason she was yelling was that at that time it was thought if you ate fish and drank butter milk you would die or get real sick. But as you can see I pulled through. During this period I got the Mumps and had to stay in the bed. The painters were painting our house and the paint smell almost drove me crazy. The painters did not want to get near me, so I was locked in a hot room with the doors and windows closed. Daddy finally got what was a really nice automobile when we lived there. It was a 1937 or 1938 Pontiac. It had what we called knee-action suspension. When you put on the brakes it would bounce up and down, real neat. I would sit in that car for hours pretending that I was driving. I drove to town and to see Grandpa Chapman several times a day. Man I was really laying rubber with this automobile. I got into trouble twice, that I remember, I am sure that it was more than twice. Anyway one was that several of us boys went in to the woods, on someone's private property and cut down about 30 to 40 tress and built us a teepee, It was very large and well built. The man that owned the property, as I remember was not very happy about losing all those trees. A second incident involved my one and only fight in High School. I don’t remember what the problem was but a boy, named Sonny Boy Prince, who lived across the street from us, and I got into it at school. Miss Maude (School Principal) called me in and said of all people in that school she never expected to see Prentis Ollis in her office. Miss Maude sent us both home that day. She sent me first and about ten minutes later she let Sonny Boy leave for home. I hid in the bushes and when Sonny Boy came by I jump out and finished him off. We both were bleeding when we got home. The worst part was that I got a whipping and had to go to Sonny Boy’s house and apologize for beating up on Sonny Boy. While living on lower Elm I received one of the biggest disappointments in my childhood. After begging for a couple of years, Santa Claus brought me an Air Rifle. I had it for a couple of days and Mother was just worried sick that I would shoot someone or get into some kind of trouble and she took it away from me. In exchange I got a scooter. I also bought my first bicycle with my paper money. It was a very old bike and one of the pedals was missing, but I rode that thing every where. Never got the pedal repaired, so I rode down hill most of the time. |
|
This is the last Article Click one of the Links Below |