Oh, they was nice people. John was more business than his brother was,
Jake. Jake died in 1937. He was superintendent. He had a heart attack
and died. He had just about built his new home over there in Hickory. He
just about had it finished when he had his heart attack and died. You
know where John lived, over there on the River Road? There used to be a
big house set up on the right as you go down past
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the Oakwood Cemetery. On this side. And it went straight on through
there, over to the river. And about halfway on that road, he had a big
brick fine home, up there on the hill, and he lived in that. And his
daddy lived right in there in a big wooden house, pretty close there. We
always called him "Daddy" Geitner. He come to the mill, he wouldn't do
nothing, though. He'd come out to the office. That old office building
that sits right across the road from where the fire station is, out in
West Hickory? That old long building. They put their office in there.
Used to be a moving picture show in there, before they put the office in
there, and a barbershop and a cafe. And when I was small and growing up,
me and my brother, we lived up here on Longview, and we'd walk down
there to the moving picture show. And my daddy worked at the Southern
Desk then; I was just six, seven, eight years old. P. D. Short run a
taxi in town then, and every Wednesday there was a continued picture on.
I don't know whether they've got them anymore or not. Every Wednesday
they'd have episodes of it, in fifteen episodes or… And we'd go down
there. P. D. Short would run the little picture show and owned the taxi
in Hickory. And when it would be raining on Wednesday, he'd come up and
get us and take us to the show. He wouldn't charge us nothing for taxi
fare, so we wouldn't miss the show, you know. And it was Jack Hawksy
that played in that continued picture. My daddy and we'd go every
Wednesday night. It was me and my brother—he's three years and a half
older than me—and my youngest sister, Carrie. She was just real small
then. Pretty nights, though, we'd walk down there, and next morning we'd
ask Mama how we got home. She'd say, "Well, you walked," and we
Page 8 wouldn't know nothing about it, me and my brother.
[laughter] We'd go to sleep in the
middle of the picture show. And we moved down to the mill hill when
daddy and my brother got a job down there.