… my stool. I went up there in the slasher room. I went up one side and
down the other. All over the front. I was so sick over my stool. About
that time I was coming from the slasher room back to my warp mill.
He says, "What you doing up here, Icy?"
I says, "Milton, somebody stole my stool."
He says, "Ain't nobody stole your stool."
I says, "My stool's gone. Roy's helped me hunt it and I've been all over
this plant, and I can't find my stool."
He said, "Well, I'll look around. Could be that some of them in the
twisting room come down here and borrowed it."
I said, "Why didn't they borrow some of the rest of them?" I went on
back, I had to take Roy's stool. I worried and worried and worried about
my stool.
Page 69
Didn't nobody know that I told Milton what I was going to do. If they had
I'd have laid it on any of them, hiding it. But didn't nobody know it
but Milton. I told Milton. So come to find out I never did find my
stool.
On Friday morning I went in. I had my Sunday clothes on, my Sunday shoes.
Had my hair fixed right pretty. Everybody says, "You look so pretty, you
didn't come in to work."
I says, "I didn't. This is one day I'm going to pester everybody." I had
to learn a girl, Julia Candem, to creel on my, she was going to take my
job. I learned her how to creel. I took more pains with that poor soul.
She wasn't old, she wasn't but thirty, maybe thirty-one. I took the most
pains. I said the way I was treated when I went in there, the way Essie
treated me, if I ever had to learn anybody, I'd do the very best. Show
them everything. And help them anyway that I could. And I did. And I
learnt, I don't know the hands I learnt. So Julia went on over there and
says, "Icy, Lord mercy, I can't keep them two warp mills up."
I says, "I'll be back after a while and I'll help you." So I went all
over the slasher room, talked to all the slasher men. They all hugged me
and said, "We sure will miss you."
Then I went on up to the cotton winding room and went around to all of
them. They all hug me and says, "I wish you the very best. I wish it was
me."
I come on around to the office there where Gene and Allen and Boyd, all
of them, I talked with them girls, their secretarys, Jean, all of them
was in there. They was all around me and hugging me, saying, "I don't
know of nobody in the world I hate to see, as bad as I hate to see you
leave."
I says, "Well, I hate to leave you all. I growed so fond of everybody. I
love everyone of you. Y'all feel like one of my family. In fact, you're
the only family
Page 70 I got here in Burlington. All the
bosses says, "If anything in the world ever comes up and you need us,
you holler. We'll be right there."
I had talked to Sherry that lives right there. I was sitting there and
talking to her. All at once the telephone rung and I was leaving from
there going up to the main office, to talk to Fran and all. The
personnel man. She laughed and said, "Yeah. She's fixing to leave right
now. She's going up to the office and talk to the personnel and Fran and
all." And it was Milton, he called. It was him she was talking to. He
told her and her face turned just as red. She says, "Well, I'll do my
best."
He says, "I'm getting on my scooter and I'll be there in a minute. You
hold her there. They're all down here."
I says, "Who was that. You looked at me and laughed. I'm going up to
Fran's and see all of them, personnel, Jimmy, that was the
superintendent. I'm going up there and tell them goodbye."
She says, "No, you can't. Milton's on his way up here on that scooter."
I says, "I ain't riding on that there little scooter."
She says, "Well, he's on his way." About that time here he comes busting
in the door.
He says, "I come after you."
I says, "You told me I could go around and tell everybody ‘bye’."
He says, "I did."
I says, "I ain't got to the office up there. I'm going up there."
He says, "You can go up there later. I got something down here I want you
to do for me."
I says, "Go ahead, I'll be on down there." I thought maybe, what popped
into my mind, was that Julia run up against something she didn't
understand. I says, "I'll be right on down."
Page 71
He says, "You're going with me."
I says, "I ain't riding that scooter."
He says, "Yes you are." I got on the back of that thing. I says, "I'll
fall off of it."
He says, "No you won't. I won't drive fast."
He rounded the curb and the whole crowd was standing there. All of them
from the main office, slasher hands, dye hands, the warp hands, and two
or three of the retired hands was there. They had everything fixed. When
Milton drove up and turned the scooter this way and they snapped our
picture. Then Jimmy, he made a little talk. He didn't say but a word or
two, he filled up and he quit. Personnel man was talking. Every one of
them cried. They took the picture of the table.
I looked at Milton, laughed and said, "You didn't fix me no blue
floweredey cake, did you?" That was the prettiest cake, I just wish you
could have seen it. That cake was that long and it was that wide. I have
never seen a cake that long. It was decorated all up. It had the year I
come there and the year I was retiring. And says, "Happy Retirement,
Icy. We love you." That was the prettiest thing. They give me several
presents. Bobby, he knowed I did snuff. They had paper cups there at
them vending machines, and I'd always take one of them and I dragged my
cup along with me. If I had to go over to the other warp mill, I'd take
my cup with me so I could spit. You know what he had, them warper hands
made up and bought me a gold cuspidor with my name "Warpin', we love you
Icy." He hand me that.
I says, "Bobby, if that's a cone of yarn, I'm going to throw it at you."
That's what I thought it was. I opened that.
He says, "Well, it ain't no yarn." I opened that up and that was so
pretty.
Page 72 He says, "I want you to use that."
I says, "I'll never spit in that. That's too pretty to spit in." They
made me up $350.00 to give me and give it to me with a real pretty card
with everybody's name on it. It was real nice. All the other
retirements, they said something about it. A lot of times they'll call
and say, the bosses will, "What's you going to do. You got anything
planned tomorrow." And if I did, I'd tell what I was going to do. They'd
call that next evening, "You got anything planned tomorrow." And I'd
say, "No."
"Well, you be ready. We're going to take you out to lunch." They come and
carried me out I don't know what the times for lunch from the mill. They
ain't done none of the other retirements like that. Thelma Ward
especially, she said, "They never did take me out for lunch."
I says, "They come and carried me out. They called me and asked me, told
me to be ready, they'd pick me up at five minutes to twelve. We'd go out
and eat dinner."
It kind of hurt me about the money they giving them now. Of course, I got
my little dab of profit sharing. It wasn't much. I got it. But still
that wasn't like that main. I could have really used that money. I felt
like if anybody was entitled to it, I was, because I put my whole life
there. My young life and I growed up there. Where them that's getting
that money, they have quit and be gone for from two to five and six
years and come back and get another job. That wasn't fair. Probably it's
fair to them. I'm glad they're getting it. But it wasn't fair to me. I
felt a little hurt over that. Milton and Jimmy and all of them said they
done their level best to get it for me. They said Klopman put in his two
cents. They said it knocked me out of it. They really felt that if
anybody in the world needed it and got it for the years that I give to
the Burlington Mills, I deserved it.
Page 73 Burlington
Mills, I deserved it.