Thompson 340906

Cliffside, September 5—During the last four years Cliffside has changed more tangibly than in the preceding ten years. This is my observation. You may not agree.

New business has come to town. Every building around the circle has seen a change. The old Cliffside Mills Department Store, once the county style center, has gone. Today the same building stands. With new business and the narrowing of merchandise lines, it has become divided.

The Carolina Grocery occupies one wing of this building. The Ballenger Company is in another section. The Haynes Bank, proving its stability in an onslaught since 1929, has held its place and remains unchanged in its same space in the old department store building. Mills Drug Store, “on the corner,” is a new business. Too is the Miller Furniture Company at the south entrance, the site of the old department grocery. Across the circle in the old furniture building is located Hawkins’ Hardware. Dedmond & Son handle the garage building. R. E. Carpenter, local designer and draftsman, holds an office in the little building on the north once housing Gilbert’s Studio. In the same building is Sugg’s Shoe Shop. Corner Grocery and the Corner Café.

Proctor’s Café, Biggerstaff’s Barber Shop, Spark’s Barber Shop and Hawkins’ Beauty Shop occupy business places in the ground floor of the Haynes Memorial Building which has served the village since its erection in 1919. With bare feet and a stubbed toe I stood on the corner and watched concrete steel and brick go into the foundation of this building.

The Cliffside Theatre, having changed management several times previously, has been operated for the past few years by interests of Spindale, this state. The local showplace has given the village the latest shows in talking pictures.

Shirley White tells me this: He sat in a Savannah, Georgia railway terminal. Casually talking with strangers as one will do, he learned a fellow who had left home at the age 15 and was then 27 years of age. The two sat conversing and suddenly saw a lady drop a handbag. The fellow of White’s recent friendship ran after the train and caught the last car. He returned the hand bag and in swinging off the train stumbled and fell. He broke an arm and was lacerated from head to feet. He received nothing in reward for returning the handbag.

In the Colonial village at a Century of Progress Exposition I sat watching a free lance artist as he etched one of the buildings there. His movements were slow, and measured. His work required time. He glanced first to the building and then to his work. A few strides down the street of 1700 a blacksmith fashioned trinkets and horseshoes from shapeless pieces of iron. One used a heavy hammer and muscle. The other used a light pencil and skill.

To the D. C. Whitaker’s an evening last week we witnessed a pretty party in progress in honor of Miss Rice of Norfolk. Among those with party notions were Susie Wilkie, Dorothy Rudisill, Frank Atkinson, Andy Love, Alice Carpenter, Spud Crawford, Hazel Haynes, Ken McMahan who, by the way, is now a Counselor at law.

Jim Padgett, the famous O. K.’s papa, tells me for five generations the men in their houses have never owned any variety of firearms.

Fiddling along: The Bamfields, who have been with Joe Cook shows on Broadway for seven years are the best in juggling that I have yet seen… Charlie Bruggie can stand on his head and play “We’re In The Money” on his fiddling zither, mandolin or whatchallit…For a hot number “Bugle Call Rag” has been a favorite…Before I could stroll down the village street Sunday p. m., Martin Mauney was here looking around. The girls are back to teach school. You big bad nasty mans!