Remembering Rosemary

 Rosemary Hill grew up across the street from me in a little mill town called Startex. It’s the kind of place that no longer exists today… a time of innocence… a time of community… a time of days gone by.  The textile mill there is gone now and Startex Elementary is no longer a school.  

Rosemary and I were quite good friends during our elementary school days even through the strange age when it was no longer cool to like girls. Rosemary was an only child but she would sometimes  come over to play during the day when we were still quite young. Both of her parents worked and my mother seemed to be one of the few on the mill hill there that did not work… and so I reckon her mother must have thought it was ok for her spend time with us.  

Rosemary was both smart and motivated to excel in school. Funny... the things you remember…  round about the sixth grade... due to her being in the top of the class.... she and a few others were helping the teacher somehow with the results of IQ tests we had taken.  They dont normally tell you the results of these tests but somehow she was privy to the results and shared with some of us that had done well. I had done well but I was the type of person who really never applied myself to normal schooling but I had a great curiosity with how things worked and studied and experimented with things in my dads shop.  In the fourth grade I made a primitive electric motor for a science fair project. I had seen a picture of one in a science book. It  actually ran and was powered by a toy train transformer that I had.  Hard to imagine growing up without access to all the things my dad had in the shop.

But this is about Rosemary and I have had two dreams about her recently… one several years ago and one last night which motivated me to commit this to words. Rosemary excelled in high school and graduated at the top of the class and went on to do the same in college. She went on to marry a dentist here in Spartanburg and became fairly active politically and was even head of the Spartanburg republican party for a time.  I reached out to her and chatted with her by phone a couple of times but really never saw her again.  

The first dream was sort of odd... we ran into each other at some sort of event and we were both very well dressed… which is a bit odd for I’m rarely well dressed these days.  We were reminiscing and wondering around trying to figure out where we were and where we were going. It soon became apparent that we were at the Republican National Convention.  For a time shortly after that I wanted to reach out to her and tell her about the dream but I never really got around to it.

Sadly not too long ago I learned that Rosemary had passed away and I regretted not having reached out to her.

My most recent dream was just last night and it too was a political event of some kind but more on a high school level .  It was a bit of a raucous affair and for some reason I seemed to be the target of some animosity and was not faring so well.  It was about that time I spotted Rosemary and approached her and told her how glad I was that  she was still with us as I had heard that was no longer the case.  Our reunion was cut short as my tormentors were still on my trail.

Not sure what it means when you dream that someone is after you and you can't seem to get away. Thankfully I woke up about that time and was relieved to learn it was all a dream.

Rest in Peace Rosemary for you live on in our memories and our dreams.