Most people from different parts of the country view the underground miners as low-mentality people; a concept that couldn’t be more wrong. Stop and think and just give me your attention for just a few moments. Put yourself in my world.
I live in southwest Virginia. It is beautiful country. But living off the land went out big time around the same time I turned 10 years old. I was raised on a large farm. My old man raised us six boys on a 12-dollar-a-week salary. But we had free trade in livestock. That year the farm changed hands and we moved to town.
Now it is ’91 and I’m the one with the young family. Mining is my way of life. I’d hell of a lot rather be farming, but in order to do so my family would suffer. My boys deserve better than what I got. I almost made it through college. Had I just a small amount of support I am sure I could have. But I was raided poor and knew when to say enough.
After quitting college I tried several jobs and soon found out that in this part of the country it’s No Risks, No Bucks. I guess that’s a crude way to putting it, but so be it. Although it doesn’t seem that long ago, it’s been almost 15 years since I first went underground.
Here lately I’ve been rode hard and put up wet. I’m sure you’ve probably heard from the news that the coalfields aren’t doing well. And when times get like this it always makes the life on an underground miner much harder. You’re expected to produce just as much mineral, with a little over half a crew, as you produced with a full crew.
Needless to say, times are hard. But an old coal miner is pretty well used to that. Coal mining has always been a boom-or-bust, feast-or-famine way of life. Whether or not we can produce the coal has never figured into it. That’s taken for granted.
A man can be the best in the field one day and without a job or for not having one the next. But it’s like I say; we old miners are tough, and we hang in there. Every man that’s worth a damn cares about more than himself, a good man has a conscience. I live and work for my family as well as myself. And that’s what keeps me and a lot of other miners going.
I’m talking about the times when the mountain is cruel and hard. Times when it’s too low to sit up straight and take a drink of water. Crawling in water up to your privates, with somebody back in a high dry place hollering about what’s taking so long to get that miner moved place to place. Your first impulse (and I used to take it) is to just crawl out of that hole. Get off whoever’s hill you’re on and head toward the house. But a man with a family has more than his feelings to take into account. So, a “good un” will just grin and bear it. A man’s got to overlook a lot of ignorant people in this old world.
The mountain is hard but it’s fair. If you’re willing to work hard and pay attention, you can make a living. Conditions are always changing. She’ll be wet and low for maybe half a mile, and then it might get pretty good for a whole mile or so. The work is always the same—it’s the conditions that change. But you’ll never get a large oil company (they own most of the mines) to understand that simple fact.
When conditions are good and we’re top producers, setting records and such as that, everybody lives well. When conditions are bad the Company automatically puts the pressure on. Lack of production has to be the result of insufficient motivation on the part of the Boss or the men or both. The first thing they do is replace the boss. And then they start on the men. Meanwhile the conditions will change and you’re back on top. But a lot of times you lose a damn good Boss and end up working for one with an inflated ego and very little knowledge of mining and the men who live there. You see, a lot of people visit mines, but we live there.
I’ve been bossing for the last little bit. It involves a whole lot of thinking and responsibility. I went for better than ten years without having to resort to bossing as a means of making a living. It all boils down to the family man I talked about earlier.
I find myself in a predicament—a “puzzlement,” the mountain men would say. I agreed to boss because of the times and the lack of job security. And I did well – to good. Now they’re taking me away from my mines and crew to send me to a so-called “problem mine,” one that’s going through bad conditions. I’ve got no choice in the matter.
Let me sort of lay out the setting here for you. These men have been going through Hell for the last little bit. They’ve been told that if they don’t do better they’ll be replaced. And them sending me to replace the other boss is a show of the power the Company has over mortal man.
I’m sitting here right now studying – that’s what we call deep in thought. Just how am I going to approach these men? I know how they’ll be before I even get there. Cause I’ve been through it a lot of times on both ends.
They’ll be there in the bath house changing into their work clothes. Some come an hour before work time, others make it just in time to catch the man-trip. Usually the old ones, the old-timers, allow themselves for time than the younger ones.
I’ll come in and pick me out a locker. Not too far from the heater or too close to the door. They’ll act like they don’t even see me, sort of look at you out of the corner of their eye. They’ll make small talk; some form my benefit, some for pure entertainment. The talk for my benefit will be along the lines of what and all can become of a man in the little dog hole…terrible things that have been known to happen to SOB’s who tried to push their weight around.
And then again some will be cordial. They’ll try to feel you out, see if you have any mountain boy in you. Questions like, “Did you get any deer this year.” I’ll take my can of Skoal out, being sure to take the proper time to open it carefully and on purpose. I’ll carefully take a dip, offer him the can, and he’ll probably say, “Thank you just the same, but I don’t use it.”
Then I’ll look around the bath house but never at the men, and then I’ll look just to right or left of the man who spoke, miners never looking directly at whom they’re talking to. If you did your light would be in their eyes. That’s an insult. You live underground a lot of years and you do it by nature.
“Killed a buck and eat a doe,” I’ll finally answer him. He’ll know by my downward glance that I’m not overly proud of either, and by the same token that, yes, indeed I’ve got some mountain boy down deep. And there is a bond there, between two mountain men. We both know that we can survive on top of the mountain as well as under it. And I know that if I show him I’m there to make a living he will do the same.
It’s common practice at all company mines for the Boss to give a safety talk at the start of the shift. I like to wait until we have portaged to the face and set our buckets down at the power center. That’s the time that a smart boss tells the men what he wants them to do. If you talk work before work time, some take it personal.
In there, I’m responsible for the whole crew. Anything they do can and will be used against me. I start out by saying I never was much for speeches. But that I do feel there are times when something needs to be said.
"We all know the reason I’m here (I’ll stop and take a long time spitting.) I don’t know your old boss…whether he was a good one or a bad one…I don’t guess it much matters now. He’s gone his way and I’m here.
We’re all out here to make a living. The Company isn’t something we can deal with but, still, it’s the one we choose to live with. If that weren’t so you wouldn’t be our here tonight nor would I.
Fellers, we’re all out here to make a living. I don’t ask any of you to do more than you’re capable of doing.
I hate the words “job sacred.” I know that when you try too hard you get hurt—sometimes bad. I don’t want that. The Company doesn’t want that.
You’re all good coal miners. You have been for a lot of years. I’ll give you a chance if you’ll give me one. We’ll do what we do best or leave with the rest. But most of all I want you to know, I don’t want one damn lump of coal going out here with blood on it.
Now, you all go do what you do best and I’ll try to fit in."
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