Everybody in the Upstate wants to save the textile jobs from going overseas, but are they willing to pay higher prices? All of those bargains you find at the enormous department stores such as Wal-Mart come to you courtesy of cheap labor and what many textile and economic leaders call “unfair trade practices”. The pros and cons of trade acts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) are argued on Capitol Hill, in board rooms, in newspaper editorials such as this one, and in break rooms of the manufacturing plants that teeter on the brink of extinction.

Will these trade agreements be the death knell for the apparel industry, or is this just the natural evolution of business? Here in the South there are textile plants closing every week. And the workers decry the loss of their livelihoods. But how do they think the people of towns like Fall River, Massachusetts felt when all of their textile jobs went South in the early 19th century? The mill owners moved all of their cotton mills to the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama because the workers’ unions were demanding higher wages for their members. The mill owners paid the Southern workers lower wages and participated in unfair labor practices that the unionized workers would have fought. Higher profits from paying lower wages to workers, unfair labor practices---sound familiar? To the Northern workers, the South was like China today, as they saw their employers pack up shop and move away. Those workers’ loss was the Piedmont region’s gain.

It is beyond sad to see these mills closing. I’m not supporting any trade pacts or the implementation of tariffs on goods coming from China. But I am telling you if you want to help the apparel industry DON’T BUY FROM PLACES LIKE WAL-MART AND THOSE OTHER BIG BOX STORES THAT BUY ALL OF THEIR APPARELED GOODS FROM PLACES SUCH AS CHINA.

A few months ago, in his Saturday column that he always devotes to the art of writing, James J. Kilpatrick was welcoming “the word ‘crunk’ into our lexicon”. He talked about how it was connected to Southern rappers and how “Few aspects of lexicography are more fascinating than the discovery of new words that are intended to be words in ordinary usage.” Well that’s all fine and dandy James, and the idiot rappers can do whatever they like, whether they be from the South, Brooklyn, or West Coast baby.

But I am losing my mind hearing white people saying “I crunk my car”. It’s “crank” for the present tense and “cranked” for the past tense!

And now I have to tell this spellchecker to add crunk to its lexicon so I can get all of these red squiggly lines off of the screen. No, way a minute! I write for The Prater’s Creek Gazette! I don’t use a computer! I use a Hoyt-Clagwell typewriter. On which I crunk out this editorial.

Letters To The Editor

I have been hearing that the authorities are going to crack down on over - the - counter cold remedies because many people are using the products to make “crunk”, I mean “crank”, or crystal meth as it also goes by. Listen you motor heads. I got hay fever and I have to work baling hay as a roadie for The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show. I wouldn’t be able to breathe without these medicines. If I have any problems getting medicine in the future I’m gonna come looking for y’all. You won’t be hard to find. Your trailer will be the one lit up at 4 am with the sound of your wife vacuuming.

Roadie with Hay Fever

All the Way

With all this globalization, homogenization and stuff going on, things are changing down here. Look, tea comes sweetened and iced! And a hotdog comes with mustard and chili. And onions if you want ‘em! I was in Tab’s Dairy Bar, in Greer, SC, back in 1976 and this Yankee asked for a “chilidog” and they gave her a hotdog bun with mustard and chili. The woman got all mad and said “You didn’t put the wiener in it!”. “Ma’am”, the teenage girl behind the counter answered, “ I made you a chilidog”. I stepped in and interpreted for them, explaining to the lady, who had just moved to the area from New Jersey, was now in the South. I politely told her “That is a ‘chilidog’”.

Grandpa