We just got accustomed over the years to telling people who asked that we were from Springhill. That was easier than trying to explain to them about Cullen.
Nearly all the kids in that area went to school in Springhill, but we were a little closer to Cullen. That’s where the paper mill was, and most of our dads and some of our mothers worked there.
A lot of the mill families lived in the Pinehill subdivision and were close enough to the plant to hear all the horns, sirens and other mill signals and to smell the emissions from the smokestacks.
It was only a mile or so from our house to Cullen, I could walk there in 20 or 30 minutes, depending on how many stops I made along the way to visit other kids or take in the attractions.
I could run the errands that my parents sent me on to Cullen on my bicycle in about half that time if the dirt and gravel roads were dry. Bikes were pretty useless after big rains.
There were more stores in Springhill, but it was about three miles away. I was under strict orders from my parents during those pre-teen years to never go there without them.
That never bothered me because there were plenty of things for a young boy to see and do in Cullen and on the route from our house to that little village.
My parents would send me to Barrett’s Grocery to pick up milk or bread or sometimes a roast. Mr. Odell knew exactly how my mother wanted her roasts cut.
We had a charge account there like a lot of the mill people did. I could get soft drinks or candy and put it on our bill that my dad settled every payday.
I could take time going to the store to stop at the ballpark or the cement goldfish pond on First Street. But I couldn’t lollygag going home because the groceries had to stay cold.
There were never any goldfish in the goldfish pond that I can recall. People put catfish and bream in there and sometimes a bullfrog, but I never saw any goldfish. It was worth a stop anyway to see what might be swimming around in the murky water.
My favorite place on the way to Cullen was the big green baseball park where the Springhill Sports semi-pro team played. If the team was practicing, the gates were unlocked and I could go sit in the stands and watch.
Most of the kids in our neighborhood went to games there and paid a quarter for a seat in the outfield bleachers. We would get a foul ball once in a while, and they gave us broken bats that we could tape up and use in our own games.
But it was fun to watch practice when they hit long fly balls into the outfield with fungo bats, drilled grounders to the infielders and got in the batting cage to swing for the fences.
There was a huge tree just outside the park loaded with green pears. It must have been a community tree. Everybody picked pears to make preserves. Sometimes we would just polish one on our pants leg, eat it green and worry about the belly ache later.
Those were safer, saner times. There was nothing to be afraid of on those trips except bad dogs. Most of the dogs in Pinehill and along the way to Cullen were friendly and came up to be petted. We knew to run for cover when Husky was out of his fence.
I knew the combination to our mailbox and always stopped by the little post office in Cullen to pick up the mail. Most of the time, the lady at the window would just hand it to me before I could open the box.
Mr. Yates at the Friendly Bar would step outside and hand us kids bubblegum if he saw us walk by. He knew our dads.
It was worth slowing down at the body shop to watch them weld fenders and smooth out dents.
I usually had to stop by the drugstore to pick up medicine for my mother. Doc Burnham would give me a horehound candy drop from the pocket of his white druggist coat.
Then I had to rush home with the cold milk or eggs and couldn’t stop even to watch practice at the ballpark.