ROY SHELTON THOMPSON, a Good Friend

 

Roy Thompson

  The last house I visited when leaving Moore County, North Carolina, in 2018, was Roy S. Thompson’s house in the Town of Aberdeen.  

  Opal, Roy’s wife, answered the door— Roy was watching “Gunsmoke” was on ME TV. I sent cards after that morning visit or talked to Roy by phone. 

  

I met Roy after joining JPS Carpet’s product development department in Aberdeen in April 1989. My wife, Carol, and our girls (Janelle and Suzanne) moved with me from Kernersville, NC, to a house we bought in Southern Pines. 

  

I started out in 1974 as one of nine designers at Bigelow Carpet, Greenville, SC, a carpet manufacturer. I worked there 14 years and then Karastan Carpet (Eden, NC) bought Bigelow, and my family and I moved to Kernersville, N.C. Then I hired as a color designer with JPS Carpet (known as Stevens Carpet, later called JPS Carpet, and in 1995 renamed Gulistan). (Three towns form a triangle in the Sandhills of Moore County, N.C.: Southern Pines, Aberdeen, and Pinehurst. In 2018, there were 42 golf courses in Moore County.)

  

Roy, eight years my senior, worked as lead technician in our  Gulistan pilot plant that housed miniature machines of most of the production machines standing in our “tufting” plant. That production plant sat across an employee parking lot from the product development pilot plant. Our job was to design new products for Gulistan.

  

Roy worked for Stevens when weaving was popular, but the “tufting method” largely took over residential carpet products. Sources say, “The tufting method creates carpet by using a high-speed machine with hundreds of needles to push yarn through a primary backing material, forming loops that can be left as-is for a loop pile or cut to create a cut pile. This process … allows for a variety of textures and styles. After tufting, a latex adhesive is applied to the back, and a secondary backing is added for stability and to lock the yarn in place.” 

  

When I arrived in 1989, Roy worked for Brady Grubbs and Charlie Kennedy who were under John Weller, our VP of Product Development. Other employees in our department included Dale Meacham, Jerry Holt, Arnold Seawell, Joe Kimball, Dilline Shanon, Robert Jackson, Bruce Douglas, and Ralph Houghton. 

  

Our pilot plant contained offices and produced sample (30-inch by 36-inch or so) prototypes of possible new products. If the company wished to introduce a product, then a selected sample was reproduced in 12-foot-wide carpets. Roy worked at making samples.

  

Roy was a tall (6ft-1inch or so) slender, quiet fellow with graying hair. At our first meeting, I noticed “Shirley” tattooed on one of his upper arms. I met his wife and when he introduced her as his “wife” and not by her name, I said, “Glad to meet you, Shirley.” She said her name was “Opal” and made no comment about “Shirley,” but a slight red tinge colored Roy’s face. He later explained the “Shirley” tattoo was done early in life. He served in Germany with the U.S. Army. On Nov. 22, 1963, when headed home from Germany by ship, Roy heard that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. 

  

“We thought we might have to return to Germany because the President had been shot,” Roy said. “But we didn’t.”

  

Over the years at our company, Roy worked steadily, often staying late to accommodate Charlie Kennedy, who was full of product ideas and rose to be Gulistan’s president. I can’t remember when Roy retired from Gulistan, but we missed him.

  

Finally, I retired in Jan. 2013, within two months of being age 66 because I was “let go” as the company went bankrupt. A press release stated, “Gulistan, headquartered in Aberdeen, N.C., and with plants in Turnersburg and Wagram, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed its N.C. facilities in 2013, leading to the loss of about 395 jobs.”

  

In 2017, my wife, who had suffered from pulmonary hypertension since 2013, felt we should move back to the Greenville, S.C., area. We bought a house in Taylors, S.C. In 2018, I returned to Southern Pines to assure painting was done on our NC house before we sold it. I left our house for the last time and stopped by Roy’s on the way out of town. 

  

In phone conversations, I learned Roy’s son, Gregory Thompson, a military veteran of Iraq, died. 

  

Roy went three times a week for kidney dialysis. He no longer drove but rode by medical transport to FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital—Pinehurst. He said his wife, Opal, was experiencing dementia. A few times he asked me to talk with her on the phone. I wondered if he did so to let me know the progression of her condition. She asked Roy for answers if I asked anything in detail. Roy said she didn’t cook because she couldn’t recall recipes. Kidney dialysis drained Roy. He said he was very tired after each dialysis he endured. He told me was trusting Jesus.

  

One day I called Roy and Opal answered. She said Roy, 84, born Oct. 18, 1938, had died. 

  

“He came back from dialysis and was sitting in a chair, and he just fell over,” Opal said. “We’ve all got to go sometime.” 

  

Opal’s niece was at the residence, and I spoke with her. She said her family were going to look after Opal, she said. I called later, and the house phone had been disconnected. I miss Roy and Opal’s friendship. 

  

Roy’s obituary: “Roy S. Thompson, 84, of Aberdeen passed away on Wednesday, August 30, 2023.

 

“Roy was preceded in death by his parents Andrew and Alma Thompson; sisters Gladys Parker and Ann Williams; brother Lewis Thompson; and a son, Gregory Thompson.  He leaves behind a wife Opal Thompson; two grandchildren, Drew (Dylan) and Meagan Thompson; two beautiful great granddaughters, Caroline and Rose.” 

Judge or Not Judge -- Which?

   A young couple moved to a new neighborhood, and as they ate breakfast the next day, the young woman noticed her neighbor hanging her laundry outside to dry.

“Look at the dirty laundry!” she exclaimed to her husband. “She doesn’t know how to wash properly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.” 

  Her husband, remaining silent, continued to observe. Each time the neighbor hung out her washing, the young woman criticized her neighbor’s cleaning skills. 

  

A month later, the young woman was surprised to see the neighbor’s wash hanging out, looking remarkably clean and bright. 

  

“Look,” she said to her husband. “She’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this.” 

  

The husband replied, “I actually got up early this morning and cleaned our windows” (an internet story).  

  

Jesus says, “Judge not that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). 

  

Sowing and reaping come to mind.

  

Jesus continues, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 

  “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye. … You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:2-5 ESV).

  

“Most of us can be quite judgmental,” says Mike Robbins, a writer. “It seems to ebb and flow based on my own level of confidence, inner peace, and fulfillment.”

  

We try to bring people down to our level so we can feel better about ourselves, Robbins says, and we “project” our stuff onto other people. He gives an example: “If we have not accepted our own arrogance, we will notice lots of arrogant people around us and have a very hard time with them.” He says judging can be helpful if it makes us more aware of our own need to nurture love, acceptance, and reconciliation.

  

“The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known,” Oswald Chambers says. “Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive and cruel, and leave you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. … I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.”

  

“True judgment should be done with a desire for restoration rather than shame,” someone said. 

  

St. Paul says “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things” (1 Cor. 2:15). 

  

Jesus saying “Judge not that you be not judged” means we can expect to get back from other people the same kind of judgment we apply to them, while Paul saying “judge all things” refers to “spiritual discernment, using God’s standards to test and understand things with the guidance of the Holy Spirit,” sources say. 

MRI for a TORN ACHILLES TENDON

   I had an MRI to look for a torn Achilles tendon (Mon., Sept. 8, 2025). 

I walked up a slight hill on a paved road and my 78-year-old left ankle tensed up. Weeks later, still paining, I visited NP V. Pipenko who sent me to Dr. Huntington of Steadman-Hawkins who sent me for an MRI. 

  

At the Travelers Rest, SC, hospital, Barbara, my wife, and I sat in the waiting room. Jose, a short Spanish man arrived, smiled, sat near us, and dozed.

  

Michelle, a technician, came for me. 

  

“Leave your personal items in that box,” she said, after guiding me to the MRI room. “Leave your pants on but take off your belt—the metal buckle needs to be off. You can leave on your socks. The test will take 20 minutes, and you can listen to your choice of music: rock, country, gospel … .”

  

“Gospel is good,” I said. 

  

“We have Southern Gospel or Worship,” she said.

  

“I had Southern Gospel last time, so I’ll try Worship music,” I said. 

  

Angela, Michelle’s assistant, helped me lie on the narrow “bed” and adjusted a pillow. I donned headphones to go into the “tube.”

  

“You’re tall enough to get your foot inside the tube without going all the way in,” Michelle said. “I’ll tell you when the last two-and-one-half minute image is to be made.”

  

Michelle placed my foot in a plastic holder.

  

“My, your foot is swollen,”she said. “Don’t move your toes.”

  

My body moved toward the large tube but stopped before my shoulders entered. Worship music began playing on the headphones. Lovely. But intermittently, peaceful tunes were interrupted by whirring or clanking or “wr-r-r-rench-turning sounds” of the machine.

  

“OK, we’re starting the last test,” Michelle said over the headphones.

   

They were stood me upright. Jose entered the room. Angela spoke to him in Spanish. He was next. 

   

I stashed items back into my pockets and put shoes on, Michelle ushered me to the waiting room. I learned from Michelle that she and Angela attempt to perform 15 MRIs per day. 

  

“Your MRI will be on MyChart at the same time your doctor gets it,” Michelle said. 

  

Hurray! The MRI was done! Later, I saw the MRI, and the Achilles was torn. Dr. Huntington said he thought it would heal without surgery, but I must wear a "boot."

ANOTHER BATTERY-POWERED CART STORY ... More Are Needed in Grocery Stores!

   This time there was no battery-powered grocery cart available during our midday, weekly grocery shopping trip. I’m awaiting knee replacement surgery and need help. 

  After walking behind a regular grocery buggy into the Walmart at Greer, SC, my wife, Barbara, left me sitting in an odd cart — one turned backwards and made for pushing someone weighing up to 250 pounds. Barbara could push me in that cart, but the front wire cage will not hold all our groceries.

  

So, I waited as Barbara strolled off with our food list and a regular buggy. I hoped someone soon would park an electric grocery cart, and I could hobble to it, sit down, and zoom at 2-miles-per-hour to catch up with Barbara.

I waited … and waited.

  

Barbara returned after 35 minutes with her shopping done.

  

“No one left an electric cart,” I said. “They are all in use, I guess.”

  

She pushed her buggy to the self-checkout area and, item-by-item, did her duty. 

  

I waited, sitting in the odd cart. A heavyset lady, using a cane, walked into the store and headed my way. 

  

“No electric carts are available,” I said. “I’ve been waiting here over 30 minutes.” 

  

The lady rolled her eyes.

  

“Sometimes the carts quit working,” she said. “One day, I went to the superstore to get groceries. I was on a cart in the middle of the store and had it full of groceries when the battery, or something, quit working. I waited for an employee to come by so I could ask for help, but none came. After a while, I had to get up, use my cane, and walk out of the store. I left it all just sitting there.”

  

I wondered what happened to those groceries. How long did it take for an employee to notice a cart sitting, filled with groceries — some were probably frozen things? Were items returned to freezers before they were ruined?

  

“My goodness!” I said. 

  

My wife returned, and I grabbed hold of her filled buggy. I spoke to a Walmart employee near the front of the store. 

  

“I was sitting in here, waiting for an electric cart for over 30 minutes, and no cart was returned to the front,” I said. “How many carts does the store have?”

  

“We have four electric carts, but two are not working,” she said, seeming disgruntled. 

  

I said to the lady who was still waiting, hoping for a battery-operated cart to appear, “Well, maybe you’ll get one, soon.” 

  

She rolled her eyes. 

  

As we exited, I saw a large woman driving a cart back to the store. 

  

“There’s a lady, inside the store, waiting for that cart,” I said. 

  

She smiled and hurried on. 

  

I have anxiety about finding a battery-powered grocery cart when we make our weekly grocery trip. Store managers are up to their necks in challenges, but there is a need for more battery-powered grocery carts. The population is aging. Older shoppers need help. 

RIDING A GROCERY CART ... FEELING SORT OF GUILTY

   On a recent Wednesday in November around 11 a.m., Barbara, my wife, brought a grocery buggy to our car at Greer’s Walmart parking lot. With knee replacement surgery scheduled four months away, I left my walker in our car and pushed that buggy, hoped to find an electric cart inside the store. None was available. 

  Greer’s Walmart appears to maintain three carts. (An “EZ-Shopper Electric Grocery Cart” lists for $3,000 on the internet.) All were in use. 

Barbara shopped as I waited for someone to return a cart to the in-store parking area near the regular grocery carts. A silver-haired lady on a silent, battery-powered cart soon coasted into the cart parking area.

“You need this?” She asked.

  

“Yes, thanks,” I said. “Bless you.”

  

“Bless you, too,” she said, sliding off the seat and hobbling away with a grocery bag.

  

A white-haired lady came in the front door with her husband who walked with a cane. They looked at my cart, but I pretended not to notice and raced at two-miles-per-hour to catch up with Barbara. I found her on the bread aisle. 

  

Later, turning to follow Barbara down an aisle, I saw the man with a cane. His white-haired wife said to him, “There goes your cart.” 

  

I felt guilty but ignored them. I appeared healthy and didn’t have a cane stuffed into the grocery cage on my cart, so I wondered if they thought I shouldn’t be riding. I’ve heard of teenagers getting carts like mine and whizzing through the store, giggling and causing accidents. I followed Barbara and suggested putting some items my cart’s basket, so I’d appear to be a legitimate shopper.

  

You get a different view when you’re riding a cart in the grocery store. You see products you don’t normally notice. I remember when my late wife, Carol, worked for Oroweat® Premium Breads. I’d hear her talk about the truck drivers’ tales of fighting for store shelf space. I guess “adult eye-level” is the best-selling space.

  

I felt like a child, looking up at shoppers and following Barbara. I probably didn’t have be in the store. Barbara could get the groceries by herself, but Walmart grocery shopping is sort of like a date for us. It’s togetherness. Next to home and church, our grocery store is a “comfort place.” We know the drill: start to the right at the green peppers and proceed down every aisle. It’s a bit like a stroll in the park, except it’s considered “work” and part of the chores of life. 

  

We hit the ice cream aisle — one of my favorite aisles — and we know we’re almost at checkout. You always fear there’ll be lots of folk waiting at “the end of the trail,” but this time, it’s not too bad. Barbara wheels her cart up to a self-checkout terminal and begins the process. Me, I sit on my electric cart, feeling guilty because I’m just sitting. I hit the button that cuts off the power to the cart because I don’t want the battery to weaken while I’m waiting. I wonder if someone is over at the cart parking area, wondering where the carts are. Maybe their knees are paining, and they are desperate to sit down. 

  

Barbara is methodical. Because I’m not helping, as I used to do before my knees went bad, she has to do all the grocery-handling. She’s swiping items across the horizontal screen, and prices are dinging onto the computer screen. Then, she’s bagging items; next, she’s placing bags into her cart. Finally, she’s done, and she pays with a credit card. 

  

I turn on the battery power to my cart and back out of the checkout space — "beep, beep, beep" goes my cart, as it moves backward. 

  

I move to the electric-cart parking area, hobble off the seat, and take hold of Barbara’s full grocery cart. I walk behind that cart as we head out the store door to our car. My knees are stiff from sitting on the electric cart. As we head home, I feel thankful that Walmart has electric carts for us old folk to ride, and I wonder if they’ll need to buy more of those carts as the population ages. 

EARLY MUSIC INFLUENCES AND CHURCH BAND, AS I RECALL IT

  I guess the first songs I recall were hymns. My family attended Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church, Taylors, SC, when I was born in 1947. I remember Ms. Virginia White playing the organ while people sang hymns during my childhood.

  My Grandmother (“Ma”) Lillian Crain, who attended Gum Springs PHC, kept a guitar propped behind a kitchen door. She sang “Job’s God” and folk-country songs such as “Times Have Changed in Renfro Valley.” Renfro Valley was known around 1939 as “Kentucky’s Country Music Capital.”

  Dad (J.B.) and Uncle Fred Crain played string music under Ma’s chinaberry tree on summer Sunday afternoons. Hymns and country music blended: Dad on guitar; Uncle on fiddle.

 

  Preacher Merritt sometimes gave me a dime if I’d sing this song for him when I was five years old:

  “Well, I went down to the big camp-meeting ’twas the most for to see the sight / But I got such a hearty greet-in’ that I went back ev-'ry night / They had an old-time gospel preacher from the good book of Psalms he read / But when he started preach-in ’bout the soul salvation, you oughta heard the things he said / You oughta heard him, that old time preacher man / You oughta heard him, such-a preachin’ you never heard / Well, he preached about an hour on the Sermon on the Mount, and when he ended up he had the devil on the rout / You oughta heard him, that old-time preacher man!”

  Pastor Jimmy Thompson came to pastor Gum Springs PCH Church and later started a church band after Mr. Jack Shaw visited our congregation and played his trumpet; His late brother, Larry, played trombone. Jack gave some group lessons at the church. Uncle Fred bought a trombone, and Dad bought an old trumpet. I was maybe seven years old when Dad first brought his trumpet home from church band practice. I buzzed my lips into the mouthpiece and didn’t know any fingerings to press on the horn’s three valves, but I jiggled values, buzzed, and thought, “I can play this thing.”

   

  Pastor Jimmy left Gum Springs PCH Church and founded Faith Temple Church, Taylors, SC, when I was in fifth grade. A lot of people left Gum Springs to venture to Pastor Jimmy’s new church, maybe seven miles from Gum Springs. After fifth grade, I moved with my parents to Greer, though we still attended Faith Temple.

 

  In seventh grade, I learned to play Dad’s trumpet at Davenport Jr. High (where Ms. Sybil Humphries taught band) and joined Faith Temple’s church band. I thought I could sit right in and play, but I had not known that trumpet music at school was written a note higher than the hymnbook music. At church, when the piano played “C,” I had to play “D.” Gene Barnett played cornet (sort of like a trumpet), and he told me about the “transposing” of notes I’d have to do. The alto line wasn’t too hard in the songbook, so Gene played the soprano line and I played alto. Gene’s dad, Carl Barnett, played drums.

 

  Preceding my joining the church band, the group enjoyed the trumpet playing of David White. He played in the Blue Ridge High band. Dan Lynn played cornet with him. They’d play duets at church. Dan was short and David was tall. Pastor Jimmy Thompson called them “Mutt and Jeff,” after cartoon characters in the “funny papers” (that what we call the “comics,” back in the day).

   

  For the church’s offering time — “offertory” is what it’s called in high-class churches — the band would play a “special.” The song wasn’t all that special, as it would be a song out of our hymnbook, but the band made it sound special because of the song being played on instruments. Our hymnbooks were heavily influenced by Southern Gospel-style songs. The trombones liked to play “Let Us Have a Little Talk with Jesus” because the chorus featured the bass. Frank White and Don Hill went to Blue Ridge High School and played trombones in that school’s band.

 

  During the late 1950s, accordions were popular, and at one time, we had three accordions in our church band. Mr. Bruce Foster played electric guitar. He was later joined by the Rev. Lamar Breazeale. Band members came and went, but those are some of the ones I remember.

 

  One of the key figures during those late 1950s and early 1960s days was Mr. Leo Porter who played piano. He was a natural quartet-style player. People loved to hear him play, and he led the band. The church band played a rousing part in the early days of Faith Temple, founded in 1956.

 

  Over the years, blue-collar church music changed. The piano is still central, but brass instruments don’t figure as much, I think. Guitars and keyboards are in style, and that has changed the keys that songs are written in, except for old hymnbooks which haven’t changed much. Guitar players prefer to strum in different keys than brass instrument players are comfortable with. Folk music’s popularity brought guitars to the fore, and, of course, rock music has had great influence.

 

  The old church band at Faith Temple is mostly gone, now. The church is now smaller, as far as attendance, and a fine piano player, Mrs. Sandra Martin, plays for its services. A drum set sits near the piano. An unplayed bass guitar sits upright on a nearby stand. The singing is good and voices blend as Mrs. Ann Burrows leads with her pure voice.

  Some churches still have “bands,” but they may be patterned after “club bands” — keyboard, drums, and guitars. Other churches have orchestras, which are considered culturally above the old Faith Temple-type bands, which may have reflected Salvation Army-type brass bands.

  I miss the old days when we had a good church band at Faith Temple. Of course, I may remember that band from the late 1950s as grander than it was. Someone said, “Nostalgia is not what it used to be — and probably never was.” 

  My late Grandma Lillian Crain — I called her “Ma”— used to sing “Times have changed in Renfro Valley.” Well, Ma, times have changed in a lot more places than Refro Valley.