Mill House

Feels like traveling back in time...going to Yates Mill. The time-weathered wood, the large water wheel, the old grinding stones and old gears used to turn the wheels that now sit underneath the trees. Nevermind that it's now a beautiful county park...it is also a memorial to times gone by. To know that so many people brought their corn and grain here to be milled, it makes me wonder about the lives and hopes and dreams of all the footprints that are ingrained upon the land, stone and wood of this place. Back in a time when you bartered chickens, eggs, vegetables, milk, sewing and numerous other skills or crafts just to have the benefit of the mill. In a time when money is about the only thing that "talks", the ideas of trading for what you need is about as foreign an idea as apprenticing to learn a trade. Many of us learned the story of Johnny Tremaine in elementary or middle school. He worked for free with a silversmith to learn how to smith the silver. In exchange, he was given free room and board. In this present time, the concept of working for free to learn something is a lost "on-the-job" training. True, internships in college are rarely paid and in fact are a type of apprenticeship. However, they don't give you free room and board, either! So, as I stand on the slate, beside the waterfall, and watch the water turn the wheel that used to turn the gears that used to turn the grooved stone wheels that used to mill the corn and grain, I consider "If walls could talk..."