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What a way to make a living! With age and maturity, looking back on the past, sometimes brings things into a better perspective. We're so close to the events that happen, we don't always see the big picture. Only now, can I really appreciate how hard my Dad worked. Daddy mined coal. He would come home from work with a black face. His clothes saturated with coal dust. He would undress in the cellar, slip on an old pair of pants and head to the bathroom for a soak in the tub. Some men showered at the colliery, Daddy did not. Mom washed the laundry in an old cream and green enameled wringer washer. Daddy's mining clothes always went through the last wash water. As the dirty water pumped out of the washer the bottom of the tub glistened with the coal dust residue. This same dust was responsible for the miner's asthma that claimed so many of the miners' lives. I never thought much about the risks involved with being a miner. Daddy went to work, like we went to school. Only when there was a cave-in at one of the mines would I feel a concern. I was unaware of one such happening until I returned from school one day. Daddy was involved in a cave-in at the Knox Coal Company. Mom, with my younger sister, who was only a toddler, in tow spent the morning standing outside the mine. All the women stood watch. Each time the cage returned to the surface, the women looked anxiously for their husbands. Daddy made several trips back down into the mine to help with the injured. Miners had a very special brotherhood. I don't remember the number of casualties the mine claimed that day. Daddy was never injured, but many of his "buddies" never returned to the sunlight. Each night, at the supper table, we listened to accounts of his day in the mines. Stories of canaries who died, signaling the presence of poisonous gas; oranges that could be smelled far into the tunnels, as someone peeled one at lunch time; working on knees to get the low veins of coal; hitting rock while boring holes and almost having an arm broken; setting dynamite charges that fizzled. The stories became so commonplace, that after awhile, you just stopped listening. Daddy eventually left the mines. Large mining companies began to shut down operations. Mines were taken over by small companies, who sometimes bent the safety regulations. The mines carried the label "dog holes". Several years ago, I had the opportunity to tour an actual coalmine. I was not prepared for the experience. This was what my Dad's "day at the office" was like. What a way to make a living! Now, I understood why Daddy wore long underwear, even in the summer. It was cold and dark and dank and eerie. As I stood in the tunnel, I knew how easy it would be to get lost in one of the tunnels. They branched off, one from the other, with regularity and they all looked alike. I couldn't fathom the thought of men in various tunnels blasting coal. These men were extraordinary! What happened in one tunnel hundreds of yards away, could have an effect on what happened to miners in both tunnels. Safety was always a concern. Listening to our guide, a retired coal miner, emotions welled up in me, as I continued the tour. Many of the stories, he was relating, were ones that I had heard first-hand as a child. One of the terms, I had often heard my Mom use, was "hell hole". Standing there, literally, in the bowels of the earth, I felt as if I were in a hole that could only be associated with Hell. I'm sure, in recalling "The Good Old Days" miners would be the first to tell you, there was very little good about them. A large chunk of coal, from the very mine I toured, stands in my front yard today. It is my own private monument to a very special man. My roots go very deep!
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