2

outside toilets, but our outside
toilets flushed!

I started first grade that year
at Cloverdale Elemantary, and we
all walked with our own little
group to school.

I don't think our mothers worried,
as it was such a safer time.

I enjoyed our walks to school.
Sometimes stopping in at Claude Lewis'
cafe to spend part of my lunch money,
or passing by a house to get a huge
pear from the tree in that yard.
Those pears were so cold and crisp
on a fall morning.

We had everything we needed as
a community. Most worked at the
mill in Highland, but some like
my dad, worked at the Pickett Cotton
mill.

We had our two stores. One owned
by Charlie Sizemore and the other
owned by John Brogan. We shopped
for our groceries, caught the school
buses and met with our friends
from these stores. You can't find