The Mining Culture

One of the great disappointments of Morgantown has been the way it insulates itself from west Virginia. The town and its people think they are better than west Virginia, and they'd really rather not be associated with the state at all. In conversation, rather than callin' someone a redreck... they'll scrunch up their nose... shake their heads and mutter something about those born in the southern part of the state.

Of course, if you're from Morgantown... everything is the southern part of the state, and everyone in the state is a redneck but you. They want to be New York City so bad they can't see straight.

I've always been fascinated by mines and mining. Bein' born and raised in western Kentucky, my ideas of what's done are pretty different though. See... where I'm from coal mining is strip mining. You just pull out the drag-lines and relocate the earth. That's not how its done up here. Up here its digging. It's tunnels. It's ventilation.

Them what still do the work, and they're damned few, are hard men. They're tough sum-bitches with gravel in their guts. They're mountain folk... which means they ain't really yankees. They're just mountain. I don't care if you're in east tennessee, west north carolina... southern west Virginia, or western Virginia... Hell I don't care if you're from the Adarondaks. Mountain folks are different. The rest of the world is remote and largely insignificant. Laws passed in Charleston or Nashville are mere suggestions to be chuckled about while you're suckin' down a pepparoni roll.

I'd have loved to get to meet some of them ol' boys. I would been proud to hunt with 'em, or share a beer with 'em in some little low rent cliffside bar. Instead I got stuck in high-brow Morgantown.

They found a body down mine. But there's still reason to hope. So say a prayer for them that live... and say a prayer for them that don't.

There's an old miner's song that's appropriate. Not as fancy as You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive. Not as commercial either. But it was written by a crotchety old bastard of a miner, and it ought to be remembered:

Only A Miner

Well a miner has gone to make heaven
his home,

His wife and dear children he left here
alone.

Let men of the union, from this rank
and file

Put an arm of protection around this
dear child.

He is only a miner, was killed
underground.

He is only a miner, and one more is
gone.

Why he was taken, nobody can tell.
His mining is over--poor miner,
farewell.

He leaves his companion and little
ones too,

To earn their own living as all miners do,
Shut off from daylight and those that
he loves.
The boulder that crushed him came
down from above.

He is only a miner, was killed
underground.
He is only a miner, and one more is
gone.
Why he was taken, nobody can tell.

His mining is over--poor miner,
farewell.
His mining is over--dear brother,
farewell.