By P.F. Wingard
Have you ever seen the
“lifeblood of an economy?” I’ve heard the term used to the point of
becoming a cliché, but never visualized it. Thinking back, it was in
plain sight where I grew up. I never knew it for what it was then, for
what it meant, and now I miss it.
Where I grew up, a small Southern town, the “lifeblood” was in the town’s textile mills. The largest of them, called the American Thread, turned raw cotton into spools of thread. Other mills wove thread into fabric. Still others turned bolts of fabric into clothing. A small train would come to town twice a day, pulling four or five box cars; it would drop off bales of cotton and leave with bolts of cloth or crates filled with spools of thread.
I’m struck with how magical it all seems, viewed from an age where technology should make it seem just the opposite. I can no more imagine how to produce goods like that than they could understand a cellphone or a personal computer. But there is a difference. The town of my childhood wasn’t an idea; it was real. What it produced could be held in your hand or used to make other things. It could be witnessed. This is becoming so rare.
As the mills were choked off, the town shrank. The store-fronts on Main Street closed one by one. Slowly, the town became a “bedroom community,” meaning people only slept there; they no longer worked or shopped locally.
The magic of the small town used to be so American, but now, not so much. I miss the sense of a place’s value, the sense of a community born of a shared purpose. We all had a hand in the town’s magic. Three times a day, when the streets filled, we reminded each other of our mutual dependency. When the train passed through, we all saw the fruit of our combined labor.
As a country, we’ve lost more than can ever be said. We continue to perceive that we add value but, like an amputated limb, it is no longer real. We’ve become a nation of dot-coms instead of widgets. We’re part of a global economy whose lifeblood is all but invisible to the average person. We are cogs of multinational corporations.
The train isn’t coming through America as much anymore; the track is being ripped out, leaving a scar through the country’s heart. The magic has faded and what made America is going fast, if not already gone. In the growing void are re-purposed lives, lives that are less connected and interdependent. We are becoming a lonely people who no longer pull together in a shared purpose, who can no longer see the fruit of its labor or take personal pride in its products. Since we depend less on each other, we are prone to squabble over the scraps. “Who to blame” is the most deadly symptom of our disease. Instead of repairing the damage, it rips us further apart.
Small towns were far from perfect and there were many aspects that I’m glad have passed. My point is not so much how to fix things but more of a gentle reminder that not everything in the past was bad. We have but to remember that we once built things and we can again if we stop trying for the next big idea or quick buck.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Where I grew up, a small Southern town, the “lifeblood” was in the town’s textile mills. The largest of them, called the American Thread, turned raw cotton into spools of thread. Other mills wove thread into fabric. Still others turned bolts of fabric into clothing. A small train would come to town twice a day, pulling four or five box cars; it would drop off bales of cotton and leave with bolts of cloth or crates filled with spools of thread.
I’m struck with how magical it all seems, viewed from an age where technology should make it seem just the opposite. I can no more imagine how to produce goods like that than they could understand a cellphone or a personal computer. But there is a difference. The town of my childhood wasn’t an idea; it was real. What it produced could be held in your hand or used to make other things. It could be witnessed. This is becoming so rare.
As the mills were choked off, the town shrank. The store-fronts on Main Street closed one by one. Slowly, the town became a “bedroom community,” meaning people only slept there; they no longer worked or shopped locally.
The magic of the small town used to be so American, but now, not so much. I miss the sense of a place’s value, the sense of a community born of a shared purpose. We all had a hand in the town’s magic. Three times a day, when the streets filled, we reminded each other of our mutual dependency. When the train passed through, we all saw the fruit of our combined labor.
As a country, we’ve lost more than can ever be said. We continue to perceive that we add value but, like an amputated limb, it is no longer real. We’ve become a nation of dot-coms instead of widgets. We’re part of a global economy whose lifeblood is all but invisible to the average person. We are cogs of multinational corporations.
The train isn’t coming through America as much anymore; the track is being ripped out, leaving a scar through the country’s heart. The magic has faded and what made America is going fast, if not already gone. In the growing void are re-purposed lives, lives that are less connected and interdependent. We are becoming a lonely people who no longer pull together in a shared purpose, who can no longer see the fruit of its labor or take personal pride in its products. Since we depend less on each other, we are prone to squabble over the scraps. “Who to blame” is the most deadly symptom of our disease. Instead of repairing the damage, it rips us further apart.
Small towns were far from perfect and there were many aspects that I’m glad have passed. My point is not so much how to fix things but more of a gentle reminder that not everything in the past was bad. We have but to remember that we once built things and we can again if we stop trying for the next big idea or quick buck.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
