But many other former King Mill employees who applied for jobs with Standard after the company bought the plant 10 days ago are still waiting for the phone to ring.

One of them, Harry D. Moore, 62, went to work at King Mill in 1961, delivering shipping boxes to the line to be loaded with blankets.

''I strapped boxes and put the tickets on them,'' he said.''I was 21 years old when I went there. I was in the same department the whole time I was there.''

On Thursday, Standard interviewed Mr. Moore and told him they would let him know.

''They said they was trying to hire the best qualified people down there,'' he said. ''They might call me back later on. Yeah, they might.''

Mr. Moore said he didn't want to have his picture in the newspaper because he thought it might lessen his chances to get that call.

Mr. Moore was on his way to the pharmacy to buy a 30-day supply of one of the medicines he takes daily for his diabetes.

The prescription costs him about $36, compared with the $20 he paid when he was working and had health insurance, he said.

Mr. Moore is one of 306 King Mill employees who lost their jobs, retirement and health insurance May 4 when General Electric Capital Corp. seized the assets of King Mill's parent company, Spartan International of Spartanburg

Spartan International owed GE $65 million on a revolving line of credit, and the company had been overstating the amount of collateral it had, said GE lawyer Mark Maloney of King & Spalding law firm.

''GE Capital did not want this company to close its doors,'' Mr. Maloney said.

GE worked with Spartan until April, when Spartan told GE it could not succeed and would have to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. GE then learned about the collateral overstatement, Mr. Maloney said.

Mr. Maloney made his comments last week during a hearing of former King Mill employees' petition in U.S. District Court in Augusta to have an interim trustee appointed to continue the employees' health insurance benefits.

''To put it bluntly, GE felt it had been defrauded and did not want to go forward,'' Mr. Maloney said. ''Spartan management elected not to go forward with Chapter 11. It closed its doors and threw my client the keys.''

Spartan's assets went into receivership, and Standard bought King Mill's machines and equipment, which were valued for taxes at more than $20 million, for $4.1 million in a swift, secret sale. To pave the way for the sale, the Augusta Canal Authority bought the land and building for $200,000.

Since buying the mill, Standard has interviewed about 500 of the more than 1,000 people who applied and has hired 185. Many of them are former employees, such as Mr. Boynton's daughters Amy Edmunds, 37, and Kathie Delrie, 35; his son-in-law William Rogers, 38; and his son, Wallace, 32. Mr. Boynton was on medical retirement when the mill closed.

About half of those who have been hired will be at work this week, said Jerry Fick, Standard's director of human resources.

No one has had time to sort out how many of the employees formerly worked for King Mill, Mr. Fick said.

Many not hired by Standard suspect age is the reason.

''It was probably my age, because I didn't lay out. I had a good record,'' said Roy Poole, 60, a machine technician, who worked at King Mill for 25 years.

''They said they'd be getting in touch,'' he said. ''That was last week. I haven't heard nothing yet.''

Age has nothing to do with who gets hired, Mr. Fick said.

''We've hired people who worked at the mill 40 or 45 years,'' he said. '' It's largely based on the positions available and who's able to fill those positions.''

Still, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for many of the older employees not called back to get jobs, former employees said.

''Those of us 55 and older, where are we going to find a job?'' asked Gloria Renew, who worked as a weaver at King Mill for 13 1/2 years.

Sixty-one-year-old Ronald Walker, profiled by The Augusta Chronicle last week, thought he might find a job in Florida. He went there to visit his son and look for a job last week.

''I went to a couple of places, but ain't nobody hiring nobody,'' he said. ''They ain't hardly no jobs at all down in Florida for somebody like me, somebody that don't have no education.

''Just about everybody that's hiring, they want high school diplomas and four years of college. That's the way things are.''

Mr. Walker, who worked on King Mill machinery for nearly 40 years and even wrote a maintenance manual on it, was interviewed the day the sale was announced. The interviewer told him he would telephone him the next day, but Mr. Walker has notreceived a call, he said.

''I don't think there's much need in hoping on that much more,'' he said. ''I guess if I can make it some way or another until I get on Social Security, I'll be all right then. It won't be like it was, but I'll survive.''

Meanwhile, he's just going ''day by day.''

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylviaco@augustachronicle.com.