Memories up in Smoke

Talking with old friend Dave from North Franklin, he always comments on the headlines in the local newspaper.  Fire in Norwich leaves ....homeless.  Again, Norwich and its' surrounding towns have definitely changed.  With the arrival of the casinos, new people call the area home, Sprague no different than many larger cities.  As the the textile industry waned, people moved on.  Now much the same can be said for Sprague's other business..paper.

Sprague in its' prime was a mini-city, a destination.  We have touched briefly on this a number of times before.  The old Baltic Mill or it's "yard" a once thriving industry, long past its' prime, now the empty lot, a mere reminder of it's former glory.  Looking at photos, of old historic castles in Northern Ireland, compliments of long times Fred's News friends, the Loughhead family, these castles, now open to the elements stand as reminders of Northern Ireland's past.  The Baltic Mil,l before demolition, was just such a reminder. 

Looking back to the years before the fire, many a local kid used the old mill and the grounds as their own personal playground.  Much like an old haunted house beckoning inquisitive minds, the mill was forced to reveal many of its' "secret" passages.  The majority of young people that probed the empty walls of the mill, were warned many times over, "do not go there, you can get hurt, it is private property...yada, yada, yada."  Conversations along those lines only increased the appetite for further exploration.  My children, no exception, found excitement  sneaking into the sleuth-ways, walking through, the now dormant gigantic intake fans.  By some of the "treasures" they returned home with, others frequented those areas as well, perhaps even a few local homeless, sought refuge inside the vacant "castle".

The early morning regulars at Fred's News often spoke of the mill, in all it's glory.  They traded "shop" stories, showed now faded photos of life "inside the walls" of the giant complex.  Jokingly, they traded barbs of "who were the best workers", and the "family" antics or twenty, thirty or forty years of the daily grind, but sorrow showed in many of the eyes, as conversations turned to the destruction of the mill.

As fire consumed the structure, thick black smoke swirling towards the heavens, news cameras capturing  every moment of the ill-fated structure's demise, perhaps those very cameras should have turned to the saddened faces of the by-standers...many with tears rolling slowly down their cheeks, as if their memories of the life and good times had been burned from their hearts and minds.