The Wheels of the Mill Go Round and Round - Drudgery at 14
There's a reason why people who do hard work can be seen buying BC Powders and Excedrin packs at the convenience store during the lunch hour, swallowing them down with Red Bulls and Big Gulps. People who get up every day and go and do physical labor, hurt! There is a reason why I never put on a pair of socks without appreciating them. Let's chalk that up to a life-changing brush with labor, the grind of mill work, at the age of 14.
In my never-ending pursuit to be among the haves instead of the have-nots, I decided to take a part-time job at my uncle's knitting mill, - one of many small, independent mills that dotted across Alamance County, North Carolina. As my Dad took me into the mill, the first things I noticed were the incredible noise levels and the stifling heat. The air was full of lint and saturated with the smell of oil, a combination that made my head swim. My Dad took me over to see my uncle and say hello and after giving me a quick up and down the way a relative does who hasn't seen you in ten years, my uncle pointed at a sewing machine and quickly disappeared. There were six machines, staggered out in two rows of three. I followed my Dad to the empty machine, past the women working the others, none of whom looked up for more than a second.
A few minutes later a woman and my Dad were dragging over a huge cardboard box filled with dingy white socks tied together in large bundles. Every bundle was a dozen socks.
I was introduced to a woman, I think named Teresa.
She told me to sit down, and with her nicotine stained fingers, she showed me how to guide a sock across the sewing plate. The machine cut off the excess material as it went through and each time I ran a sock through the needles, a tiny bit of lint floated up my nostrils. After screwing up about a dozen socks, I pretty much had it down. They left me with my giant box of socks and after about an hour I had only sewn the toes of three dozen socks. I had, however, gained a brutal headache and my nose was completely clogged with lint snot. Eventually my Dad came to check on me and see if I wanted to go get a Pepsi and I jumped at the chance to get up and move around.
He gave me a quick tour of the mill, showed me the machine he was repairing and I watched him take slender tweezers and change a long, thin needle in a wheel of hundreds. On the same row, I watched a woman walk from one machine to the next, pick up a sock that dropped out of the bottom of the machine, lay it across her arm that was covered in a stocking, then walk to another machine and repeat the action. I wondered if that was her job - was that what she did eight hours a day? Day after day.
Another hour passed on the awful lint-spewing, soul-sucking machine and I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't breathe, the oil smell was nauseating, and then Teresa stopped by with a fresh Pepsi and sat it beside me.
"How's it goin' honey?" she asked. I noticed her tattered, sequined cigarette case clutched in her hand. She asked me how many dozen I had done and I told her eight and she laughed out loud and went and told the fat woman on the machine next to mine and they shared another laugh. It pissed me off a little but then I wasn't planning a career of sock sewing so I didn't respond.
"Well come on then, you deserve a break anyway," she motioned me to follow and we walked out onto the loading dock and sat on the cool, concrete steps in the shade. I swear to you the air had never smelled better to me in my life. The women chattered a while and then Teresa asked me if I was still in school. I thought- is she kidding? I'm just a kid, of course I'm in school!
"Yeah, I'm at Turrentine."
"Well honey, you stay there, you hear me." She shook her stained finger in my face. "I was in the 9th grade when I got pregnant with Henry.
My mama said you done made your bed and now you gotta' stay home and take care of him. She put her cigarette out on the step and held her finger in my face again.
"Now I got three mouths to feed!"
I didn't know how to respond to this so I just asked how old they were.
"Henry is fixin' to be nine in June, Amy is 4 and Justin is 2."
"How old are you?" I asked without thinking.
"Twenty-five next Tuesday," she smiled as she said it and I saw a large black cavity between her two front teeth.
I asked how long she had been at my uncle's mill.
"She's been here almost long as me, 9 years," the fat lady answered. "Didn't take her long to get her speed up too, she's a good one."
"So how many socks do you sew a day?" I was curious. I knew that my uncle, like most of the mills around town, paid by production- so much for each dozen they sewed. The wages were low, most of my aunts had done some mill work at one time or another.
"About as much as I can finish unless the machine screws up."
"You have to wait for it to get fixed. Can't make no money on down time." They finished their cigarettes and I finished my Pepsi and we all went back to the dull hum of the machines and I wondered how someone could sew socks for nine years, even one year.
It was incomprehensible.
I thought about how she looked 35 instead of 25.
Around four, people started leaving and the roar of the mill suddenly stopped and there was an almost painful vacuum in my ears. My uncle got an air hose and blew off the lint from the machines but all it did was stir up more lint and I felt like I was suffocating in a pillow.
On the ride home my Dad and I didn't say much. I could tell he was worn out. So was I and I had hours of homework waiting that somehow I was looking forward to doing. I went into the bathroom of our sixth rented house and stared at myself in the mirror. I had grease on my forehead and little bits of sock lint in my hair.
The next afternoon I went back to the mill for a couple of hours and that was it. I told Teresa I wasn't coming back and she told me she wished she could leave but she had bills to pay and a sick mama and a broke-down piece of shit car and there wasn't much else we had to say after that, so I left. I had just quit my second job with some very clear lessons learned courtesy of two women who sewed the toes of socks. Lesson one, work can inflict misery. Lesson two, bad work can trap you. And lesson three...don't ever get pregnant!
It finally made sense to me why so many people around my town looked depressed all the time- they were. They were coping with lives that held little joy. Living in near poverty with bleak futures, tied down with kids they could barely afford. They were paid cheap wages and the heartless mills worked them to exhaustion, not caring who they were, as long as they showed up and produced. Few mills provided any medical care, certainly no dental care, and no benefits but lots of health risks.
Some perhaps did enjoy the work, were maybe even well suited for it, but I have to believe those were few and far between. And, oddly, there is a certain solitude in the monotony of simple, mindless, repetitious work. You can drift, just drift, not think, escape.
My Dad found some peace in his work despite the toil it took on him because he was the sort of man who was challenged by making something work that didn't. This was evidenced by at least one car in our yard that also never worked.
He never said anything about me quitting the mill, but that was when he told me there was honor in any work if you gave it your best. I understand that now and it has helped me cope with several jobs I truly hated.
And then he taught me something even more important about work - don't forget how to play. My Dad found ways to take his mind off his work. He found happiness and peace in his music and taught every one of us kids how to play an instrument. He loved nature and spent as much time as he could outdoors.
At fourteen I learned some more valuable lessons about life and work and I was able to see it all better than I am now because today I am still absorbed by work and I need new strings on the guitar in the corner that has gone untouched for way too long.
So in conclusion, respect the men and women who work hard. Appreciate your socks. Be careful how you proceed in life, and most importantly, make some music.
In my never-ending pursuit to be among the haves instead of the have-nots, I decided to take a part-time job at my uncle's knitting mill, - one of many small, independent mills that dotted across Alamance County, North Carolina. As my Dad took me into the mill, the first things I noticed were the incredible noise levels and the stifling heat. The air was full of lint and saturated with the smell of oil, a combination that made my head swim. My Dad took me over to see my uncle and say hello and after giving me a quick up and down the way a relative does who hasn't seen you in ten years, my uncle pointed at a sewing machine and quickly disappeared. There were six machines, staggered out in two rows of three. I followed my Dad to the empty machine, past the women working the others, none of whom looked up for more than a second.
A few minutes later a woman and my Dad were dragging over a huge cardboard box filled with dingy white socks tied together in large bundles. Every bundle was a dozen socks.
I was introduced to a woman, I think named Teresa.
She told me to sit down, and with her nicotine stained fingers, she showed me how to guide a sock across the sewing plate. The machine cut off the excess material as it went through and each time I ran a sock through the needles, a tiny bit of lint floated up my nostrils. After screwing up about a dozen socks, I pretty much had it down. They left me with my giant box of socks and after about an hour I had only sewn the toes of three dozen socks. I had, however, gained a brutal headache and my nose was completely clogged with lint snot. Eventually my Dad came to check on me and see if I wanted to go get a Pepsi and I jumped at the chance to get up and move around.
He gave me a quick tour of the mill, showed me the machine he was repairing and I watched him take slender tweezers and change a long, thin needle in a wheel of hundreds. On the same row, I watched a woman walk from one machine to the next, pick up a sock that dropped out of the bottom of the machine, lay it across her arm that was covered in a stocking, then walk to another machine and repeat the action. I wondered if that was her job - was that what she did eight hours a day? Day after day.
Another hour passed on the awful lint-spewing, soul-sucking machine and I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't breathe, the oil smell was nauseating, and then Teresa stopped by with a fresh Pepsi and sat it beside me.
"How's it goin' honey?" she asked. I noticed her tattered, sequined cigarette case clutched in her hand. She asked me how many dozen I had done and I told her eight and she laughed out loud and went and told the fat woman on the machine next to mine and they shared another laugh. It pissed me off a little but then I wasn't planning a career of sock sewing so I didn't respond.
"Well come on then, you deserve a break anyway," she motioned me to follow and we walked out onto the loading dock and sat on the cool, concrete steps in the shade. I swear to you the air had never smelled better to me in my life. The women chattered a while and then Teresa asked me if I was still in school. I thought- is she kidding? I'm just a kid, of course I'm in school!
"Yeah, I'm at Turrentine."
"Well honey, you stay there, you hear me." She shook her stained finger in my face. "I was in the 9th grade when I got pregnant with Henry.
My mama said you done made your bed and now you gotta' stay home and take care of him. She put her cigarette out on the step and held her finger in my face again.
"Now I got three mouths to feed!"
I didn't know how to respond to this so I just asked how old they were.
"Henry is fixin' to be nine in June, Amy is 4 and Justin is 2."
"How old are you?" I asked without thinking.
"Twenty-five next Tuesday," she smiled as she said it and I saw a large black cavity between her two front teeth.
I asked how long she had been at my uncle's mill.
"She's been here almost long as me, 9 years," the fat lady answered. "Didn't take her long to get her speed up too, she's a good one."
"So how many socks do you sew a day?" I was curious. I knew that my uncle, like most of the mills around town, paid by production- so much for each dozen they sewed. The wages were low, most of my aunts had done some mill work at one time or another.
"About as much as I can finish unless the machine screws up."
"You have to wait for it to get fixed. Can't make no money on down time." They finished their cigarettes and I finished my Pepsi and we all went back to the dull hum of the machines and I wondered how someone could sew socks for nine years, even one year.
It was incomprehensible.
I thought about how she looked 35 instead of 25.
Around four, people started leaving and the roar of the mill suddenly stopped and there was an almost painful vacuum in my ears. My uncle got an air hose and blew off the lint from the machines but all it did was stir up more lint and I felt like I was suffocating in a pillow.
On the ride home my Dad and I didn't say much. I could tell he was worn out. So was I and I had hours of homework waiting that somehow I was looking forward to doing. I went into the bathroom of our sixth rented house and stared at myself in the mirror. I had grease on my forehead and little bits of sock lint in my hair.
The next afternoon I went back to the mill for a couple of hours and that was it. I told Teresa I wasn't coming back and she told me she wished she could leave but she had bills to pay and a sick mama and a broke-down piece of shit car and there wasn't much else we had to say after that, so I left. I had just quit my second job with some very clear lessons learned courtesy of two women who sewed the toes of socks. Lesson one, work can inflict misery. Lesson two, bad work can trap you. And lesson three...don't ever get pregnant!
It finally made sense to me why so many people around my town looked depressed all the time- they were. They were coping with lives that held little joy. Living in near poverty with bleak futures, tied down with kids they could barely afford. They were paid cheap wages and the heartless mills worked them to exhaustion, not caring who they were, as long as they showed up and produced. Few mills provided any medical care, certainly no dental care, and no benefits but lots of health risks.
Some perhaps did enjoy the work, were maybe even well suited for it, but I have to believe those were few and far between. And, oddly, there is a certain solitude in the monotony of simple, mindless, repetitious work. You can drift, just drift, not think, escape.
My Dad found some peace in his work despite the toil it took on him because he was the sort of man who was challenged by making something work that didn't. This was evidenced by at least one car in our yard that also never worked.
He never said anything about me quitting the mill, but that was when he told me there was honor in any work if you gave it your best. I understand that now and it has helped me cope with several jobs I truly hated.
And then he taught me something even more important about work - don't forget how to play. My Dad found ways to take his mind off his work. He found happiness and peace in his music and taught every one of us kids how to play an instrument. He loved nature and spent as much time as he could outdoors.
At fourteen I learned some more valuable lessons about life and work and I was able to see it all better than I am now because today I am still absorbed by work and I need new strings on the guitar in the corner that has gone untouched for way too long.
So in conclusion, respect the men and women who work hard. Appreciate your socks. Be careful how you proceed in life, and most importantly, make some music.
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