In the early 1970's I was living in the mountains without electricity. I had purchased an old Singer treadle sewing machine at a second-hand store. As the accommodating store owner loaded the old treadle in my pickup, some old toothless guy sitting out front invited me to sit and listen to the history of that old treadle. It came from the old abandoned dilapidated complex known as the Bachelor's apartments. These apartments were, how shall we put it, a whore house. The old man decorating the storefront because he was too blind to play dominos in the dark backroom, told me the history of my new old machine and that famous housing project.
His wife believed he was visiting men friends there and gambling and that is where their money went. She finally had it one day and he confessed it was not the gambling that took their money and she beat him half to death, knocking out and loosening most of his front teeth. She packed up and left taking the only car and what cash they had left. They had no children. He never married again and when one of the rooms at the Bachelor's housing became available, he moved in as the maintenance and handyman for room rent. He did odd jobs around town for food and spare time in the back of the store gambling where he won more than he lost. He told me of all the costumes the girls used to sew on that old Singer. I told him I once sewed much of my own clothes and got it especially for modifying second-hand jeans, making jean shorts, shortening long skirts, and making thrift store T-shirts into crop tops. That seemed to brighten the old man up. I assured him I was not the kind of girl that would live in such a place as the Bachelor Apartments or participate in activities there, but knowing the history of the machine would keep my mind from wandering while sewing. My mind wouldn't drift off to scenes of royal ladies trained in finishing school dressed in elaborate evening gowns with waist bound painfully in corsets sewn on that old machine.
His wife believed he was visiting men friends there and gambling and that is where their money went. She finally had it one day and he confessed it was not the gambling that took their money and she beat him half to death, knocking out and loosening most of his front teeth. She packed up and left taking the only car and what cash they had left. They had no children. He never married again and when one of the rooms at the Bachelor's housing became available, he moved in as the maintenance and handyman for room rent. He did odd jobs around town for food and spare time in the back of the store gambling where he won more than he lost. He told me of all the costumes the girls used to sew on that old Singer. I told him I once sewed much of my own clothes and got it especially for modifying second-hand jeans, making jean shorts, shortening long skirts, and making thrift store T-shirts into crop tops. That seemed to brighten the old man up. I assured him I was not the kind of girl that would live in such a place as the Bachelor Apartments or participate in activities there, but knowing the history of the machine would keep my mind from wandering while sewing. My mind wouldn't drift off to scenes of royal ladies trained in finishing school dressed in elaborate evening gowns with waist bound painfully in corsets sewn on that old machine.
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