Paragon Mills

Paragon Mills when I was a child was miles and miles of woods,
I used to wander alone for hours at a time,
Across Citrus drive up Pennfield past the graveyard and then
behind the school into the woods,
We used to have huge football
games behind the graveyard there,
I remember skipping school one
time and hiding in the
bushes in front of one of the houses on Pennfield drive,
A woman came out of the house with cold cream all over her face,
It scared me half to death; I was very young so she took me home and
turned the truant in to its mother,
I remember another time I skipped school and didn't get caught,
I sat up high in a tree in the next door neighbor's yard all day long,
I could see the neighbor; Beverly; thru the window; eye level with
the second story; I must
have really hated school,
In the winter-snow we used to sled down Gary drive and on
down my steep driveway,
We would get going so fast we could barely stop before we ran thru the
ditch and into the fence
at the end of the yard,
We had some terrible crashes; even left some marks in the bricks
on the side of the house,
There was a tree on that side of the house that always racked across
my window at night,
It always scared me; so me and
my little sister would sleep
together and this gave great comfort,
I remember the morning I woke up when what was left of hurricane
Camille came so far inland,
That tree was whipping around; scratching at the window and the sky
looked like a scene
in some horror movie,
We had four giant White Oaks
in our backyard they
were beautiful trees,
Two of them fell during tornadoes; one on the Bennett's fence and
the other on our house,
There was a farm behind our house
and during one of those
tornadoes the barn was almost completely destroyed,
And there was also my favorite tree in the front yard that I fell out of
once and broke my arm (broken bird),
My old house is still
there but it's all houses around it now,
The farm behind my
house; the woods behind the school; all gone,
I still carry Paragon Mills in my secret soul,
And though I don't think
much about those days anymore; perhaps I should.