I REMEMBER by Hartford Pryor Sometimes we wonder where certain roads and streets get their name. Here is the story behind Double Bridges Road. About 10 miles west of town on the Flint River there is an island. Upson County built a bridge over to the island on our side and Talbot County built a bridge to the island on their side. This happened in 1860 or earlier. The two bridges remained there until 1865 when, during the Civil War, Wilson's raiders of the Union Army came through while going from Columbus to Macon. These Yankee troops destroyed the bridges, but the name of the roads that led to them stuck. (The name of the island is Owens Island and it is about one mile down the river from Spewrell Bluff.) I remember when, in the vicinity of the present Department of Family and Children's Services, there was a large clothing store owned by Mrs. Lucy Hellner (a relative of the late Gussie Kass). Everyone loved Mrs. Hellner. She had a thriving business. One day, to everyone's surprise she had a "going out of business sale;" but the store did not close. A few months would pass and she would have another such sale. Finally, everyone learned that it was a sales gimmick. During one of her sales she was returning from Macon with a load of stock and had a serious wreck. Then one day she did go out of business, but it was not because she wanted to close those doors. Her store caught fire and burned down. I remember when Brother Herbert Morgan, was preaching at the East Thomaston Baptist Church and a drunk man came in and walked up the aisle saying, "I want to talk to preacher Morgan." I took him to another room. After the service, Brother Morgan came and prayed with him. I REMEMBER By Hartford Pryor I remember a man who could not remember. I will simply call him James. My first recollection of him was when he worked in the spinning room at Thomaston Mills. His job was to supply the proper yarn for all the women to make the filling for the cloth. The yarn was marked with colored chalk to say what ply it was. The women would tell him to bring the brown mark and he would bring the blue. One day one of the ladies told him to bring a certain color and he came back with an empty box. After several months on this job, he was transferred to the cloth room where I worked. After working with us several months, he quit and did not do anything for a while. Then when he did decide to come back to work, Thomaston Mills hired him again. This time they gave him a job as a mail clerk. He would go to the post office, pick up the mail, take it to the Town Office on East Main Street and separate it. Some of the mail he left at the Town Office, the rest he would deliver to the Peerless Mill, the Bleachery, or the Thomaston Division. One day as he came to bring the mail to the Old Mill he came inside to chat with us in the cloth room since he had not seen us in a long time. When his visit was over, rather than going to his truck he walked out the back gate onto Mill Avenue and then down Barnesville Street to East Main St right back to the mailroom at the Town Office before he realized that he had forgotten his truck. He had to get someone to bring him back to the Old Mill to pick up his truck, a distance of about a mile and a half. This is a prize story about forgetful- ness. Who has got a better one? Send it to me if you do. I REMEMBER By Hartford Pryor I remember Otis Jones. In the late 1940's, everyone was familiar with the "blind man's store" at the comer of Holstun Drive and Triune Mill Road. Many have wanted to know about him. Here is his story. Otis was bom in 1897 in Cairo, Georgia. At the age of 2, he fell off the porch and injured his optic nerve and became blind. Otis was also scared up very badly when he crawled into an open fireplace. Otis went to grammar school at the Academy for the Blind in Macon, Georgia. Mr. Claude Jones, Otis's brother, lived in Cairo too; but in March 1933 he and his family moved to Thomaston. After the family had settled on Walker Street, Claude went to work and sent for his mother and his blind brother. Otis, who was then 36, lived with Claude and his family. Otis set up his first stand to sell goodies at the Charles Williams Truck- ing Co. on East Walker and Hightower Street, then known as Railroad Street. Otis had very sensitive hands. He could even make change with paper money. He walked from his house on Walker Street with his cane every day. Next, Claude had a small store built for him at Triune Mill and Holstun Drive. All of the kids loved to go to the blind man's store. Elizabeth Garrett, who was a friend of Otis' and lived on Avenue F, would walk and carry him his dinner quite often. After several years, Otis eventually moved back to Cairo to live with a sis- ter. Later he returned to Thomaston and lived at a boarding house on West Main Street with a family named Yarbrough and had a stand there. He was active until he died of a heart at- tack on August 10,1958. Thirty- 1 REMEMBER By Hartford Pryor I remember how years ago an un- usual set of steps appeared behind the "Old Mill" At the back gate of the Thomaston Division there was a rail- road that had a deep embankment. In the late 1930's or early 1940's Thomaston Mills had a set of steps made to go down the embankment and one to go up on the other side. Each flight had about 30 steps. As a boy I often wondered why these steps were there in such an un- usual place. Later 1 found out . On Park Lane, across from the back gate, there were several houses. Mr. Robert Adams, Plant Manager, lived in one of them, but it has been torn down. Mr. W. R., Bames, Spinning Room Man- ager, and Mr. Raymond Black, Card Room Manager, lived in two others. If they walked to and from the mill, they had to come down Park Lane to the intersection of Mill Avenue and then walk to the back gate to get into the mill. They steps were built just for them. All of this was done before very many people were able to own a car. After the people living in the Bleachery Village and on Cedar Row learned of this, they started using the steps to go to Barnesville Street for their groceries at Mr. Walter Kersery's ' or Mr. M. E. Day's grocery stores. The men on the railroad would also use them to contact the gate watchmen to open the gate so that they could come inside the mill yard, as Thomaston Mills did a lot of shipping by train. When I came home from the Army the steps were still there. They re- mained in place until some time in the 1950's when they were removed. I never learned why they were taken down. Most likely, they were removed for safety reasons.