JACK KEE

TRANSCRIPT %u2013 JACK KEE
[Compiled October 5th, 2010]

Interviewee: JACK KEE

Interviewers: Carter Sickels, Buzz Biggerstaff

Interview Date: August 4th, 2010

Location: Shelby, North Carolina

Length: Approximately 53 minutes

CARTER SICKELS: My name is Carter Sickels. This is August 4th, 2010, at Jack Kee%u2019s house in Shelby. Jack Kee is here and Buzz Biggerstaff. Could you just say your name?
JACK KEE: Jack Kee.
CS: And where and when you were born?
JK: Born in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, September 2nd, 1931.
CS: Okay, good. [Recorder is turned off and then back on again] We started talking about this before, but maybe you could just talk again about where you were born and when you moved?
JK: Yeah, we moved to Shelby in 1942. My dad went to work at Dover Mill.
CS: What was your dad%u2019s name?
JK: J.C. Kee. He worked there until he retired in--I now forgot what year it was when he retired. But anyhow, my brother, Peewee, went to work there when he got old enough. When I got sixteen years old, I went to work there. I worked there for forty-three years.
CS: Forty-three years?
JK: Well, I interrupted four years--went in service--in the Air Force and came back to work in 1954 and then retired in 1992. Then they called me back to work another year, so [laughter] I had the opportunity to retire two times.
CS: Okay. And you worked at the Dover Mill?
JK: Dover Mill. It%u2019s Doran now, has been for what, several years, Buzz?
BUZZ BIGERSTAFF: Um-hmm.
CS: Can you tell me what you did at the mill?
JK: Well, I started off in the spinning room, sweeping.
CS: Okay. And you were sixteen, you said?
JK: When I was sixteen years old. I worked in the spinning room a while and went down to the card room. You may be familiar with stuff like that. I went from the card room to the weave room, and I doffed cloth, D-O-F-F-E-D, I reckon, for a number of years. Then I started weaving, so I wove for thirty-one years. I went from the weave room to the cloth room and worked in there for nine years until I retired.
CS: When you worked in--you said you doffed cloth. What does that mean? What did you do?
JK: When the loom made the cloth, it would produce a big roll. They usually had about a hundred-yard maximum, and then we cut it off and take it on down to the cloth room, where they inspected it and then it went on through the whole deal.
CS: About how many people would work on that?
JK: Plant-wise? Probably three hundred or better.
CS: Oh, three hundred?
JK: Uh-huh.
CS: Wow.
JK: Well, I started off on the second shift when I went. After I worked a week on the second shift, and this friend of mine wanted to go to school, so we swapped shifts and I went on the first shift.
CS: Okay.
JK: Okay? Then I went from the first shift to the third shift. I worked third shift eleven--eleven years, yeah.
CS: What was the third shift? What time was it?
JK: Ten to six.
CS: Wow.
JK: And then I went back on the first shift.
CS: What time was the first shift?
JK: It was six to two.
CS: Which one did you like the best?
JK: Well, I had more time, in a sense, on the third shift than I did--. Because you could sleep of a morning, or do what you had to do in the afternoon or vice-versa.
CS: Yeah.
JK: A lot of times we%u2019d get off work third shift of a morning and go to Bethware Maple Springs swimming pool, go over there and swim, ten or eleven o%u2019clock and then come home and sleep.
CS: Okay. That sounds good.
BB: Jack, I wanted to ask you a question.
JK: Okay.
BB: Spending forty-three years in there, do you remember what you started out hourly pay?
JK: Seems like about seventy-something cent. I don%u2019t know exactly.
BB: Seventy-something cents?
JK: About seventy-five cent, probably.
BB: And when you retired in %u201992, how did that wage compare?
JK: I was making nine dollars and something an hour.
BB: Nine dollars and something an hour?
JK: Uh-huh.
BB: Okay.
CS: So you said that you grew up in the village, or did you live in the village?
JK: On Dover Mill village, uh-huh. Yeah, they had the company houses, and then they had a company store over at the Ora Mill. This is another one of those plants, called Ora, O-R-A, Ora Mill. We traded at the Ora Mill, you know, about groceries and stuff of that nature. Then they had a little ol%u2019 lunch stand, a little ol%u2019 building where they had loaf bread, milk, drinks, and eventually got to where they fixed hamburgers and things. They%u2019d come through the mill with, we called it a dope wagon. I don%u2019t know what the proper name was. [Laughter] CS: Yeah, I%u2019ve heard about that. I wanted to ask you about that.
BB: It would be different now, wouldn%u2019t it?
JK: Yes, it would. [Laughter] But anyhow, they%u2019d bring sandwiches and drinks and stuff of that nature through the plant, twice a night, or twice a day or whatever. ( )
CS: Did you usually eat off of that?
JK: Oh, yes.
CS: Yeah?
JK: Hamburgers, hot dogs, cheese crackers, candy, just about--. And drinks, different drinks, you know. Some of them you don%u2019t see now, like Double Cola, Orange Crush. I don%u2019t know whether they make RCs anymore or not, do they?
BB: I haven%u2019t seen any in years.
JK: [Laughter] BB: I think that became a diet drink.
CS: Would you get, like, a full lunch break, or did you just kind of keep working?
JK: No, just sort of worked. Well, especially when you was in the weave room. You know, you was on production, so you had to eat and work at the same time. Set your sandwich and drink down and go start up a load or whatever needed to be done. But most other places, people that wasn%u2019t on production, they%u2019d have ten or fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, I believe it was. They had it way better than what we did. [Laughter] BB: Well now, Jack, you brought up a good point there. As the years progressed, a lot of the plants set aside a certain number of breaks during the day for everybody. In other words, if it was maybe a ten-minute break, first one, and then a fifteen-minute break, and then maybe a twenty-minute break for dinner, supper or whatever, but at the time you worked, the production people had to stay with their job.
JK: Really, uh-huh.
BB: When they ate and had to go to start a machine, they just laid that down, the drink, and then eventually came back to it. So that%u2019s a pretty good change from the way it was when you started forty-something years before, and then when you left. I wanted to ask, did it continue that way until you retired, or had they already begun changing where everybody took a break?
JK: I think that people on production, they%u2019d have maybe ten minutes, and then lunch time or something, they%u2019d get about fifteen minutes.
BB: So they could actually get away from their work for that period of time?
JK: Yeah, you could take that period of time.
BB: Okay.
JK: There wasn%u2019t going to be a whole lot happening in fifteen minutes, surely.
BB: You had a big change in that one item%u2026
JK: %u2026Really, sure did%u2026
BB: %u2026as you passed through that forty-three years.
JK: Right.
CS: Did you want to say--? Go, no, no, you go ahead.
JK: I%u2019ve about run out of anything, unless you bring a subject up I can answer something, you know.
CS: You said your father and your brother both worked?
JK: They worked at Dover Mill.
CS: Were they in the weaving room also?
JK: Yeah, Daddy was a loom fixer.
CS: Okay.
JK: And my brother, he eventually, he was a weaver too. We wound up over at the Ora Mill, at the other plant.
CS: Oh, he moved to the other plant?
JK: Across the creek, uh-huh. And my wife, she worked there for a while after we got married.
CS: She did?
JK: I don%u2019t know how long she worked. She was what they called the unifill tender.
CS: Unifill tender.
JK: You know, back years ago, they used to have what they called batteries. Buzz, you%u2019re probably familiar with that.
BB: Oh, yeah.
JK: Then this modern stuff come up where they made the yarn on the loom, and then it put it on a quill. All right, and then this thing, the way this thing was set up, it would transfer that bobbin or quill of filling down to the shuttle. It kept the loom running. So it went from a hand-held magazine, if you will--it was a big, round, circular thing that you put those quills in--then it fed off of that, kept a-turning. Then these women come by, and they had to put the filling into that. Then when they came up with this unifill, it made its own yarn on the loom and transferred it into the shuttle while the loom was running. See, it was a non-stop process unless something broke or something of that nature. But even before that, they had to take what they called %u201Cfill the shuttle%u201D%u2026
CS: %u2026Fill the shuttle?
JK: Yeah, when the shuttle ran out of yarn, they%u2019d have to take a bobbin and a filling and put it in the shuttle and put it back in the loom.
BB: Start it back up.
JK: Yeah, start it back up. So that%u2019s what I say, you can see how it advanced over the years. And then it got computerized. Some of the looms had computers on them. One in particular, instead of a shuttle going back and forth through the loom, this thing had two rods. You%u2019d bring this thread from one end to the other in a continuous motion, like this, see? It was fascinating; that%u2019s what I said. And then it just got too modernized, I reckon.
BB: Well, what you%u2019re talking about, it went from more or less a hand-fed filling, which is the yarn that goes across the fabric. I don%u2019t know how familiar you are with fabric, but you%u2019ve got the warp yarn and then you%u2019ve got the filling yarn. This progressed to what they called the shuttleless filling.
JK: Really.
BB: You had an air-blow, air jets that blew the filling back and forth instead of the shuttle firing it back and forth, or the picker stick and the shuttle carrying it back and forth. So that was another big change you got to see in the span that you worked.
JK: Really, yeah, it was a drastic change really. Well, I told them it%u2019s odd, all this modern machinery they%u2019ve got now, they sent all these old looms over to China--well, they%u2019re making the same material over there on those old looms that they made over here.
BB: Shipping it back.
JK: Shipping it back. [Laughter] Well, they progressed from, say, a forty-eight-inch roll of cloth up to, what was it, ninety-eight? Ninety-eight inches, I believe it was. Of course, they made the loom bigger, which would give you that much more. But that%u2019s what manufacturers require, you know. If you can make this stuff in a larger, longer roll or whatever, and then still be all right that way on it. I don%u2019t know how much money they spent on putting those new looms and things in.
BB: Yeah. Jack, on the machines, did you have in the fabric you made there at the Dover plant, did you have what we called %u201Ctwo-in-the width%u201D or %u201Cthree-in-the-width%u201D or did you just have one warp? A lot of the looms make fabric, like if you had a sixty-inch fabric in width, the bigger looms would take care of two sixty-inch fabrics, and we called it two-in-widths. Did you see that?
JK: Yeah, yeah, that%u2019s what it came to. They were putting two rolls on one loom.
BB: So that was another big change you got to see.
JK: Yeah, it went from forty-eight inch to those, like I say, ninety-something inches.
BB: Right, right.
JK: With two rolls, make it two rolls at a time. When we first went to work down here, everything had windows in it. That was the only air they got in was to open the windows, and eventually they closed it in when they added that new part to it and put air conditioning and all this other stuff in. So it progressed, that%u2019s what I say, over the years. At that particular time Dover was, I guess they were famous for drapery material, and they had jacquard looms that made the coat linings, neckties, stuff of that nature. Then fiberglass came along; they started weaving fiberglass, so it came a long way.
BB: Jack, you got to see a plant that had multiple styles. So many plants will have two or three styles, and they don%u2019t have to worry about it, month after month, year after year, they%u2019re running the same fabric. What would be a typical day with you at Dover? Would you be changing the type warps much during the day? You%u2019d weave out what the customer ordered and then would you go to another style a good bit? Did you see that while you were there?
JK: Well, they usually tried to have it sectioned off. Like if they had spun warp over in this area here, and then nylon, and then rayon, and it finally got to be polyester; then they had novelty yarn. But that%u2019s what I say, the different types of warp: rayon, nylon, what I just said. [Laughter] Yeah, it seems like they tried to start making denim at one time too, but I think this Burlington plant got the lead on that. So it was quite a change, like I say, went from drapery material to clothing material. They said Sears used to buy a lot of the drapery material, and J.C. Penney used to get a lot of the dress material. Then most of it up in the northern states bought all this jacquard quality stuff. It was fascinating. It was a challenge; I enjoyed trying to weave. It was a challenge. Of course, they expect you to try to make production though.
BB: And first quality.
JK: Good quality. That%u2019s what I told them one time when they talked about my production being low. I said, %u201CYou can sell quality. You can%u2019t sell quantity.%u201D
BB: Yeah.
JK: Yeah, really. So they%u2019d say something sometimes about a loom that had to stand so long. They told me to let it stand if it was making seconds. I said, %u201CI%u2019m going to let it stand until somebody fixes it, and once they get it fixed then we%u2019ll start it back up then.%u201D
BB: When you were on production in weaving, did you get a penalty for seconds you made? Were you allowed a certain amount before they deducted pay?
JK: If you made under a certain percentage, you got what they called a cloth bonus if you made good cloth and was below that percentage that they expected, but anything over that, you know, it didn%u2019t take away from your pay or anything. It was just a bonus if you did make quality cloth and went above production, or even at production.
BB: So that was another way of encouraging you to make good quality.
JK: Yeah, really.
BB: Jack, when you started out, you had %u201Cx%u201D number of machines, looms, spinning frames and all, and you had a certain number of people that handled them. What would you say was the number of people when you first went to work, compared with all the modernization and the reduction in the workforce, how did it compare with when you retired?
JK: When we went to work down there, it was a three-story plant. They had where they made the warps on the top floor, and then the middle floor was where they had carding, and then the bottom floor was where they had the weaving. But, roughly, there might have been two dozen weavers in the weave room at that particular time when I went to work, and I don%u2019t know how many would be up in the other parts.
BB: How did that compare with the number of weavers when you retired?
JK: Oh, it escalated from a fourth to three-fourths or better. There might have been a hundred people there to start with. When the whole plant was in operation, there was over three hundred. I don%u2019t know what the percentage would be. That was a big change. You%u2019d see people hang Coca-colas out the window in the wintertime.
BB: Keep them cold?
JK: To get them cold. [Laughter] BB: I was going to ask you, and I let it slip away: What did you pay for a hamburger and a drink when you first went to work, off of the dope wagon?
JK: I believe a Coca-cola was a nickel. A hamburger was fifteen cent, I believe it was.
BB: Is that right?
JK: [Laughter] BB: It%u2019s hard to compare that with today, isn%u2019t it?
JK: That%u2019s what I say, yeah.
BB: It was a good hamburger too, wasn%u2019t it.
JK: Yeah, they were, they sure were. [Laughter] CS: Do you remember when the dope carts, when they stopped using those?
JK: Stopped what?
CS: The dope wagon.
JK: It was on after I came out of the service. I came out in %u201954, so it was in the fifties, somewhere along in there. L.V. Martin, I don%u2019t know whether you ever knew him. He was over at Swainsville. He had two sons, Howard and Hoyt, and they all worked in that little ol%u2019 place. We called it %u201Cthe shack.%u201D That was the gathering place, though, in between shifts. Most of them would gather up there and talk and joke and eat or whatever, before they went to work. Then the ones coming off, they%u2019d gather out there too. So it was sort of like Hardee%u2019s is now, [laughter] people meeting and they%u2019d just talk and have a big time. We had horseshoe stobs out beside of it; we%u2019d stay out there and pitch horseshoes. We%u2019d get off at six o%u2019clock and last until about eleven o%u2019clock pitching horseshoes.
BB: That was another thing, and I was wanting to ask you too, is when you were growing up and through the years, what kind of entertainment you had?
JK: Well, those young boys, we stayed in the creek or the river about all the time. We%u2019d go to the creek of a morning when the sun was shining on the creek. Late in the afternoon, we%u2019d go to the river, which is on the other side of the mill, and the river would be warm then, you see? Then we had, I guess, what we called rag-tag football. We had a little baseball team, you know, and get together on Sunday and play baseball.
BB: Did you ever go to the movies, or was that kind of a treat?
JK: Yeah, we used to go to the old Webb Theater. You remember that?
BB: Oh, yeah.
JK: And then the Carolina Theater, and then the Rogers, the State.
BB: Do you remember what you paid to get in?
JK: Nine cent.
BB: Nine cent to get in the movie.
JK: What is it now, about five or six dollars? [Laughter] CS: At least.
BB: So you had a typical form of entertainment for the mill, let%u2019s call them the mill-hill folks, was pitching horseshoes, going swimming, playing rag football, or playing baseball, so it was pretty typical.
JK: Or rambling in the woods or whatever.
BB: What kind of closeness did the mill village have with the people? Nowadays, folks don%u2019t hardly know their neighbor three houses down, but how was the feeling toward each other back then?
JK: It was just like one huge family, honest. Everybody knew everybody, everybody%u2019s business. [Laughter] Everybody went to--especially on the mill village, they went to Dover Church.
BB: Did you ever lock your doors and windows?
JK: Nope. Didn%u2019t know what that was. Honest.
BB: Okay.
JK: But you can%u2019t do that no more, though, can you? Well, it don%u2019t make no difference if you lock them or not, they%u2019re going to go in anyhow, ain%u2019t they?
BB: Did many people have their own cars back then?
JK: Yeah, a lot of them did.
BB: But it wasn%u2019t like it is now%u2026
JK: %u2026Not like it is now, no%u2026
BB: %u2026where you%u2019ve got a pretty high percent that have their own vehicles?
JK: Yeah, some of the upper echelon, I guess, had their own automobiles. The way it was, you had to be a loom fixer or a boss man or a weaver to live in one of the company houses, you see?
CS: Okay.
JK: Any other, like I was a peon, I reckon, a loom cleaner. I had no access to these until me and my wife got married. We had to find a place to rent then. After I got up in the weaving, I went out on my own and got my own house. I didn%u2019t want their mill houses. But at that particular time, a four-room house would cost a dollar a week.
CS: A dollar a week?
JK: Twenty-five cents a room for a four-room house.
CS: Wow.
BB: Did you have indoor plumbing?
JK: Yeah, I had indoor plumbing. Had a big attic fan in the house. That was the only means of cooling or whatever in there, but it kept it cool. Man, them things would pull that ol%u2019 hot air out of there in a minute. A lot of them had a little ol%u2019 garden spot where they could have a garden.
CS: Yeah, I was going to ask you that.
JK: Daddy had a place down there where we had a hog or two. We didn%u2019t have no chickens or anything, but we had a little ol%u2019 garden spot. You grew about everything you ate, so that helped us survive too.
CS: Was that pretty common with the other mill workers? Did most people have gardens?
JK: Well, it depended, I guess. Up on the main street, what I call the main street, up 226, going right in the middle of it, those people up in there, they didn%u2019t have. But back down on the back side of the mill, where you had access to land laying out, you could make you a little ol%u2019 garden spot. But everything was good.
BB: I wanted to ask you another question about how was the management%u2019s feelings toward the folks? Was management kind of an entity itself, or did they work with the people good? Did they provide things other than just a salary for working?
JK: Oh, you mean like the Dover family?
BB: Yeah, for example, did they have programs where the children could go to college, maybe at a reduced rate?
JK: Even when I went to Shelby, see they had grammar school there at Dover. I went to grammar school through the seventh grade there, then went to junior high school, what they call middle school now. You had the option to either go to Shelby or come to Lattimore. The ones that went to Shelby, he paid; Mr. Dover paid for us to go to Shelby schools. But Peewee and them, they came to Lattimore. They had to walk from Dover Mill up to--what is that place down there where they build those trusses, on Randolph Road?
BB: Yeah, yeah.
JK: They%u2019d have to walk up there to catch the bus. But we%u2019d just walk up on the main street, and the bus would pick us up, [laughter] so we had luxury.
BB: You had a luxury, sure enough. But it was, that%u2019s what I say, they kept those houses up, painted, repaired, anything that needed to be done. They were good about that. They used to say Dover Mill was one of the best-kept communities of houses of whatever, well, compared to Shelby Mill over yonder. All their plants, Dover, Ora, Esther, Buffalo, and Gaston Industries over in Cherryville, or Dora 1, Dora 2, and then they built that J&C Dyeing plant down there, where they dyed their own yarn, and dyed yarn for other plants, as far as that goes, but they did; they kept everything up. I mean, you maintained your yard, naturally. They put all of those trees, planted all those trees and everything.
BB: The Dover plant didn%u2019t do any finishing of fabric, did they?
JK: No.
BB: They just wove it, inspected it, and shipped it to various%u2026
JK: %u2026Yeah, and shipped it somewhere else to be finished.
BB: You mentioned the dyeing. That came along several years after you went to work. They bought dyed yarn, right?
JK: Yeah, yeah, quite a few years later. I think Buddy Roberts%u2019 son, David, he was the one instrumental in that J&C, because they put up that steam plant, and they supplied steam to the regular plant up there, instead of having their own boilers like they used to. They%u2019d bring coal in on coal cars to fire the boiler. Then they built that steam plant, so they piped steam up there to do all that up there. They had a scout hut down behind the Dover School where kids attended scout meetings and stuff of that nature. They was instrumental in that. Always furnished a bus to take us over to Tryon or Lake Lanier over there--go over there and stay a week. They looked after us, really, that%u2019s true. Mr. Dover said one time they don%u2019t hire people outside, they raise them. So just about every child that grew up on the Dover Mill village worked in that plant sometime or the other.
BB: What percent would you say, of the folks that worked in the plant, what percent would be those that drove in from out in the country somewhere, maybe five miles away or ten miles away?
JK: Oh, it would be twenty, twenty-five.
BB: So about eighty percent lived right there on the village?
JK: About eighty percent, really.
BB: Okay.
CS: Sometimes when I read about things from the thirties and forties, they talk a lot about the unions and things like that. Was there ever any talk of unions?
JK: Never did hear anything about unions, now.
CS: Never heard anything at the unions?
JK: No. Never did hear anything about it around Shelby until PPG come in, did it?
BB: That%u2019s right.
JK: They tried to get in there, but they didn%u2019t make it. No, nobody ever talked about union. They tried to set their wages compared to some of the other plants. Naturally, it was just a little bit lower, maybe. But for the type of work they were doing, I thought it was an average wage.
CS: Yeah, it was fair.
JK: I forget what the loom fixer made, but I guess when I retired, I guess they was making probably sixteen dollars an hour as loom fixer. Then, a weaver was making $6.75, I%u2019d roughly say. Of course, that was based on your production too; it would fluctuate. Sometimes on the third shift, we%u2019d go in at nine-thirty and start looms up at nine-thirty, so we got a half-hour extra, production-wise plus hourly wage too. But I enjoyed it, I did; I loved that place. It brings tears to your eyes now to go down and see how grown-up around that is, just gone to pot. I don%u2019t know whether there%u2019s anything inside the plant now or not, whether they moved it all out or what it is.
CS: How many children do you have?
JK: I have two boys.
CS: Did you think that your sons would work in the mills?
JK: My youngest son, he tried it. He worked in the cloth room for a while, but that wasn%u2019t his bag. [Laughter] He was a--I guess you%u2019d call him multi-talented because he could do anything. He%u2019s worked in air conditioning; he%u2019s worked in refrigeration. He took a course in refrigeration--electrician--he%u2019s a good carpenter. Him and Eddie both are carpenters--plumber, mechanic, whatever. He%u2019s a jack of all trades.
BB: Jack, how long did you live on the mill village?
JK: Let%u2019s see, I lived near Grover when I moved there. I got married when I was nineteen, so about eight years--well, lived on the mill village in Kings Mountain too, at the old Margrace Mill. I don%u2019t know if you%u2019re familiar with it or not.
BB: A little bit, yeah.
JK: But it%u2019s fell plumb in down there. All that just fell completely in down there.
BB: So you moved out in your own home about what year?
JK: Well, we got married in %u201950 and moved out. I went in the service in %u201951, and when I come back out of service, I rented over in town. Then we built a home down there at the Ellis Lumber plant, stayed down there seven-and-a-half years, I believe it was. Then we built up here in 1963, June 1963, so I%u2019ve been here ever since.
BB: So you lived on a village maybe six, seven years, and then the rest of the time, you either rented or ( )?
JK: About eight, yeah, roughly eight years.
BB: What was your satisfaction with your salary? Were you pretty well satisfied as you made steps a little higher? Were you able to make ends meet pretty good?
JK: Yeah, we did. We done well. I mean, we didn%u2019t do well, but we survived. You know what I mean. Well, my wife, she worked at the old Sadie Mill in Kings Mountain when we got married, and then she got a job at Dover. They had what they called tricot, where they made cloth for women%u2019s garments, slips, underwear, brassieres, whatever. She worked in there for a long while, and then she got the opportunity to come to work at PPG. She worked down there twenty-four years. She retired in %u201991, I believe it was. I said, %u201CWell, it looks like you%u2019re enjoying it. I think I%u2019ll retire,%u201D so I retired in %u201992. [Laughter] But that first year, I thought I%u2019d absolutely go crazy, honest, because I%u2019d been on production ever since I%u2019d been in the mill. Well, Eddie and them were building pretty good back then, and they were building a black church over between Kings Mountain and Gastonia. They said, %u201CYou want a job, working around a job site, picking up brick and lumber?%u201D Or if they were building a house, clean the windows, pick up papers, sheetrock or whatever, clean it up. I said, %u201CYeah, I%u2019ll try that.%u201D So I got to doing that, but he fussed at me. Them carpenters, they%u2019d sit down for an hour at a time, eating. I%u2019d been on that production--I%u2019d eat a sandwich in ten minutes and I was ready--I was back at it. He said, %u201CDaddy, you ain%u2019t on production now.%u201D I said, %u201CYeah, but I%u2019ve got that gait, you know. It%u2019s hard to break.%u201D I had arthritis real bad, and I was climbing in and out of that bobcat and doing this and doing that. I came home one day and my wife laughed at me. I know you%u2019ve seen Tim Conway on Carol Burnett do that old man.
CS: Yeah, I do remember, yeah.
JK: [Laughter] I got out of my truck and that%u2019s the way I looked, walking into the door. She said, %u201CWhat in the world%u2019s wrong with you?%u201D I said, %u201CI quit.%u201D [Laughter] BB: Retired again.
JK: It was altogether different type of work too. I mean, a lot of manual lifting and whatever, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being out, being around with them too, but it was just a different type of work.
BB: Jack, do you still get up early like you did when you were on the first shift? You had to get up, what, four-thirty?
JK: Yeah, about four-thirty, a quarter to five. I get a wake-up call--that little ol%u2019 dog. [Laughter] BB: So you still get up like you did?
JK: Yeah, about six o%u2019clock usually, six-thirty at the most. Now, we were without air conditioning all week. Monday was a week ago, had that big, bad storm that came up. Lightning knocked my heat pump out. So Monty came by Tuesday and crawled up under the house and said that motor was burned out. Well, I called them Wednesday to come up there and fix it, and they said, %u201CWell, it being so late in the evening, I can%u2019t order a part until tomorrow, Thursday.%u201D He said it would be here Friday. Friday came, nobody came; Saturday, Sunday; and they finally got the part in Monday, so they got it back in working order. I had these paddle fans going, opened the doors and windows, you know. Of course, I close them at night, but we made it all right. That little ol%u2019 dog, bless his heart, he panted and panted and panted. One morning he got me up at 3:15, came out here and laid down, and I come out here and sat down with him. He went to sleep. I couldn%u2019t go back to sleep. [Laughter] BB: You were mentioning Eddie and the other son, about one of them trying the cloth doffing in the plant. As it ended up, they both are in--Eddie is in the construction business, and the other one is in%u2026
JK: %u2026He does millwright work over here at Belwood.
BB: Okay, he%u2019s a millwright.
JK: Well, he%u2019s a truck driver in a sense, Buzz. He goes with them to take machinery out or put machinery in, but as far as cutting the shafts and stuff, now he don%u2019t do that. They hired him really as a truck driver, and then when he started all this other stuff, well, they bought a two-hundred-acre farm up there. I guess you call it a tax write-off, where they plant soybeans and wheat. So he does farming, planting soybeans and wheat, and he helps cut it and then haul it and all that stuff.
BB: The reason I was asking about it, there was a time when both of them could have advanced in the mill. Probably I could visualize them maybe being with a carpenter group or the shop group, with the abilities they had. Do you think moving out from the village might have influenced them more than if they had been living in the village? Do you think they might have wanted to become electricians or become carpenters there within the plant, had they still lived on the village?
JK: Yeah, that was it; they didn%u2019t want to, really. When Eddie was dating Angie McAllister, Bob Buckner was a contractor over there, and Eddie was dating Angie, and Mr. McAllister wanted a garage built or something, and Bob Buckner was going to build it. So he got Eddie to help him build it, so Eddie got interested. Of course, he had been taking carpentry in school, but he got interested in studying blueprints and this and that and another, and Mr. Buckner helped him go on up. Then he went to work with Mills and Suttle, and then he and Darrell Ledbetter went together and formed their own company. Like I say, Monty, now he tried it. He worked in the cloth room for a while, but that wasn%u2019t his bag, so he started job-hopping, I reckon is what you call it. He worked at a service station, do this, do that. I told him one day: %u201CYou can%u2019t do that. You ain%u2019t going to lay around here on your rear end and think you%u2019re going to spend what we%u2019re working for.%u201D He said, %u201CWell, I%u2019ll go to the Army, not being disrespectful.%u201D I said, %u201CWell, that would be a good thing.%u201D So he went into the Army, stayed five years in the Army. That helped him grow up, really.
BB: Yeah.
JK: It was like I told him. You can%u2019t just lay around here and not do anything. I love both of them to death, and I%u2019m proud of both of them for what they%u2019ve accomplished. It was like I say, I believe that%u2019s what%u2019s wrong with kids now. Everything%u2019s been handed to them. Well, they%u2019ve worked their way up. They%u2019d cut grass and do little chores here and yonder, you know. They knew what work was. It was like we did; we%u2019d go around and pick up drink bottles or cut grass or wash cars, wash windows.
CS: When you were young?
JK: Stuff ( ) money, if you will--carry newspapers. That%u2019s the way I was brought up, so I tried to bring them up the same way. Somebody said, %u201CWhat if you had to go through this same period now, with kids like they are now?%u201D I said, %u201CIf I could apply my teachings to these that I did mine, I wouldn%u2019t have no problem.%u201D Of course, you can%u2019t spank one now without going to jail or something. But very seldom did I have to whip my children. When I spoke to them, they knew what Daddy said. Like my daddy used to say, %u201CDid you hear me?%u201D I said, %u201CYes, sir.%u201D He said, %u201CYou better heed me.%u201D [Laughter] If you didn%u2019t heed him, you got the after effects. [Laughter] CS: Before we started the interview, you had said something about doing some writing, or poems?
BB: Poetry?
CS: Can you tell me more?
JK: Well, most of my writing was done in the mill.
CS: In the mill?
JK: In the weave room.
CS: Okay.
JK: See, you had them looms a clicking and clacking. You could put two or three words together, you know.
CS: Rhyming?
JK: Then the sound of the looms--. They called me a %u201Cpoet laureate%u201D down there. [Laughter] BB: The poet laureate.
JK: That%u2019s what I say, the girls in the office were real nice. I%u2019d write it on a piece of scrap paper or a requisition order, anything.
CS: You%u2019d write them down?
JK: I%u2019d write it down. I%u2019d take them out there to them and they%u2019d type them up and run me a bunch of copies.
CS: That%u2019s neat.
JK: Well, excuse me, if you don%u2019t%u2026
CS: %u2026Do you have some of them%u2026?
JK: ...if you%u2019ve got a minute. [Goes to get some of his poetry] CS: Yeah. [Recorder turned off and then back on] JK: This is not--me and a friend of mine--I wrote it.
CS: You wrote that, okay.
JK: It was about him. We was playing golf. [Laughter] CS: %u201CDover%u2019s Poet in Residence.%u201D
JK: I don%u2019t know if you ever knew Jack Wellmon.
BB: Knew of him. What was his wife%u2019s name, Carolyn?
JK: Mattie.
BB: Mattie, Mattie.
JK: She and Lileen Washburn are sisters.
BB: Okay.
JK: Yeah. Yeah, I wrote that one about me and him playing golf. I didn%u2019t put a name to it. But I wish at the time that I had written them, I wish at the time I had put the date on them.
CS: Yeah.
BB: So you could look back and see if you progressed any?
JK: Yeah. You know, it%u2019s strange, I%u2019d give them to people there in the mill. Well, I have sent some off to different places, you know, put them in church bulletins. Well, I think they put one in the Star paper, or several in the Star papers over time. Sent one to California, Indiana, New York, sent to several different places--Gaffney--had Jack Allison--he used to put them in the Gaffney Ledger for me.
BB: Really?
JK: Really. And people come up nowadays, you know, some of them I worked with: %u201CI%u2019ve still got some of your poems.%u201D
BB: Really.
CS: That%u2019s really neat.
JK: I said, %u201CThat makes me feel good.%u201D
BB: Oh, yeah. Heck, yeah.
CS: Yeah, yeah, that%u2019s real neat.
BB: It was worth the time, wasn%u2019t it?
JK: Really, yeah.
CS: That%u2019s really neat.
JK: There%u2019s a lady out here, she talked about her being a middle child, you know. I said, %u201CWell, I was a middle child too.%u201D But I wrote one about how I felt unloved. I don%u2019t know whether you%u2019ve seen that or not.
CS: Which one was it?
JK: Let%u2019s see if I can find it for you right quick. I don%u2019t want to take up all of your time. [Recorder is turned off and then back on] It%u2019s strange, you know, you can read a little ol%u2019 joke and you forget it in two minutes, but if you read something that touches, you don%u2019t ever forget it.
CS: That%u2019s true.
JK: Or not likely to.
CS: Yeah.
JK: So they said, %u201CHow come you write sad things all the time? Why don%u2019t you write something comical?%u201D
BB: That%u2019s all right. [Reading poetry] JK: Thank you.
BB: That%u2019s good.
CS: Thank you. Well, you saw a lot of changes over forty-three years.
JK: Yeah, forty-three years.
CS: Is there anything else that you wanted to tell me that you saw?
JK: No, that about covers everything, I believe. [Laughter] It was enjoyable years, really. I thoroughly enjoyed it, really. Like I say, it was one big family. People started moving off, dying off, and that%u2019s all I%u2019ve got now, memories, you know. Once we take our memories away from us, you just as well get on out of the way, I reckon. [Laughter] It%u2019s just like when Buzz and I were fooling with Little League ballplayers. How long has that been, twenty-five years or something? Longer than that, isn%u2019t it?
BB: It%u2019s been longer than that. [Laughter] You were still working. It would have been a long time before you retired.
JK: Yeah, I worked with the Little League boys about ten years, and then got out of it. They kept after me to come back. They wanted me to coach Pony League, what they called Teener League then, didn%u2019t they? Thirteen and fourteen. I fooled with that about five years. That%u2019s when I could run and play and do all that. [Laughter] I%u2019ll go watch a little kid play now; I want to get out there so bad I can%u2019t stand it, Buzz.
BB: Yeah, I do too.
JK: I say, no, man, you better keep your mouth shut.
BB: We go out and raise money to pay for the uniforms and stuff. One Saturday, we%u2019d have it, wouldn%u2019t we? We%u2019d hit all the places we knew to hit, and it was a lot of fun. We didn%u2019t think so at the time, but it was.
JK: Yeah.
CS: Do you have anything else, Buzz?
BB: Well, Jack, we promised you about an hour.
CS: Yeah.
JK: Well, I%u2019ve enjoyed it. I enjoyed talking with you, and I hope I%u2019ve been helpful in some way.
CS: Yeah, you%u2019ve been so great. You%u2019ve been really helpful. Thank you, yeah, thank you very much.

END OF INTERVIEW
Transcribed by Mike Hamrick, October 5th, 2010
Edited by A. Jolene Litton, May 9, 2011
Sound quality: fair