Just want to tell all of you how much I enjoy the remembrances. Plse keep them up. We have lost so much history by not passing it down thru our children. I am currently writing stories of my childhood to pass down to my(future) grandchildren, as our son is the only one who can carry on our Conner line.

Incidentally, our ring was two shorts and a long. Until about the 5th grade I had a great fear of lightning. This was caused by an incident early in my childhood when we were eating during a severe thunderstorm. The crank telephone hung on the wall on the side of the kitchen table I was sitting at. Lightning struck nearby and ran through the phone, sending a mini-bolt right past my head and making my hair stand up.

Beginning about the third grade of school (1947), I would ride to Floyd each morning with my uncle J. W. Hylton, who worked at the Gulf Station. I would then walk out the street to Woolwine & Sowers Drug Store, where Giles Lee Rutrough would be just opening the store. I would help build a fire in the pot bellied stove, help sweep up, or chip ice off the big block in the back room to use for cokes. I went to the drug store every morning for the rest of my school career and helped Giles Lee open up.

I would like for someone to describe making molasses. We did this only a couple of times when I was very small, and have forgotten the process.

Can anyone confirm that Tom Rakes actually hid automobiles under hay stacks in WWII?

Anyone have a coon hunting stories? Or stories about threshing crews?

Clyde, can you tell me more about the sawmill your father? had down on West Fork of Little River, the one my brother worked at some as a teenager

How many people remember Hurricane Hazel that came so far inland in 1954? This was one of the few times I remember shool letting out early (flooding). We had purchased a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and Elmer Turman delivered them in the mail that day. I still have them, and as I am writing my stories, I refer to them more now than I ever did in school.

Anyone have any stories about rural mail carriers, or passed down stories about rural carriers on horseback.

Does anyone know when Rte. 221 was paved Roanoke to Floyd?

And one last question: When very small I heard people talk about a girl who was abducted, taken down the side of Bent Mtn, tied to a tree, and left to die one winter.
Am I out of line about asking about this? But, like the B-24 crewman who flew over Floyd and dropped a note out to his parents, it was a prominent story in my childhood that I would like to find out more about.

In closing, being in the middle of nowhere, we did not get electricity until I was a teenager. Then my brother gave us a "Fridgidair". I was in my 20's before I found out that the proper word was "refrigerator". The first TV I ever saw was in the home of Ralph and Louise Hylton, and it was a boxing match in which Carmen Basilio won the world championship. Sponsored by, who else, Gillette, and Paps Blue Ribbon. Remember wrestlers Lou Fess and Argentino Rocco, back when wrestling was real? Then Gorgeous George came along.

How many people studied and read using Aladdin kersosene lamps? Now I live where they are made, and they still make bundles of them for overseas.

Well, that's it for me for a while. Fire away.