When you are in the United States Navy the time will come to move on and the time came too soon. We sold Emma Lou. Denise had inherited some money when her parents died and she had it transferred from the Bank of England to the First National Bank in Fairmont. The navy packed up our belongings and shipped them for us. Chico had grown to be a very large dog and he could not travel with us, we had to ship him back to LaGuardia.

We were to fly to Norfolk so I could be discharged. The trip was a preview of what was to come. The plane developed engine trouble and we had to land in the Azores. The only thing I remember about the Azores is the bath room. The navy put us in a cheap hotel, there was a bath room between us and the room next door which we shared. When we went into the bath we would lock the door to the other room and there was always someone beating on it wanting in. When we finally got another plane we landed in Norfolk at 1 AM and called a cab. No cab driver would come to the air station till morning, we spent the night there. The next day we checked in at the Ocean View hotel and I reported in to pick up my discharge and have them thank me for my four years of service. I had never been in the real Navy and I found out they didn't do things that way, I took me a week to get discharged.

My parents decided to drive the 300 miles to Norfolk to meet Denise. My father really liked Denise. My mother and I always had an adversarial relationship, She and Denise started a typical wife, mother in-law association. The day I was discharged I saw my first Navy ship, The Forrestal cruised by Norfolk Beach on her maiden voyage. We took a plane up to LaGuardia and picked up the 55 Ford, it was a two tone blue and white V8 and we were tickled to death with it but poor Chico was in bad shape. They said he wouldn't eat. His coat that Denise kept clipped and brushed was tangled and matted, he was almost dead. He was so glad to see us he managed to wag his tail. We stopped and bought food for him and Denise fed him all of the way over the mountains.

When we got to Fairmont we left our things at my father's house and went to the bank to get Denise's money and open an account. The bank manager said they had not received any money for Denise. The next morning I went to the mine to find out when I could go back to work. Every miner carries a brass check in his pocket with his name and check number one it so his body can be identified in case of disaster. He takes his check off the check board before he inters the mine and hangs it back when he comes out. I went to the lamp house and my check had a red check hung over it. That meant I would have to see the Superintendent before I could go to work. When I saw him he told me my job had been terminated while I was gone. The mine was being mechanized and they had terminated a lot of jobs. This was our welcome to Coal Country.

My father was a member of the mine first aid team, it was their job to take care of any one that was hurt underground till they reached the surface. Dad had received awards for taking care of a broken back patient and a broken pelvis patient. He had met the president of the company and went to talk to him about my job situation. I went to the union and found out that there was a law that said they could not terminate my job while I was in the service. I went back to see the mine superintendent, Harry Turner. Harry told me he had found out about the law and would put me to work on the AB Gang but predicted there would be trouble. The AB Gang was the Able Body Gang, which meant digging ditches and all of the other miserable jobs that had to be done. There wasn't much demand for an Aerial Photographer in the mine so I took it.

Harry was right, there was trouble; a miner, with more seniority than I had, was laid off, filed a grievance because I was put back to work and he wasn't. I was red checked again and this time Harry told me the only place he didn't have men laid off was in the outside shop. All out side jobs paid a lot less than under ground but beggars can't be choosers, I took it. In the mean time Denise got tired of arguing with the First National Bank about her money and called the Bank manager of her Bank in England. He called the Bank manager in Fairmont and a marvelous thing happened, all of a sudden they found her money in the safe. My mother was not happy having house guest. Denise and I rented a small apartment over a garage and started a long hard haul. Denise was terribly home sick and I knew just how she felt. She was there alone all day while I worked and we were so short of money I worked all I could. We bought a television and Denise still says that is all that saved her sanity. Chico was the only one that was happy in that apartment, he would have been happy anywhere we were.

I knew Dad had gotten paid extra for practicing first aid so I asked if I could get on a team. I was told they didn't have a first aid team any more but there was an opening on the mine rescue team. The rescue team was paid 12 hours top rate once a month for practicing 4 hours. I had no idea what a rescue team did but I said sign me up. This was one of those times when you didn't know you had just changed your life. You had to look way back to realize it.

At the first practice I learned to use a self contained breathing apparatus and found out that a rescue team went to mine fires and explosions. The team members were called smoke eaters. The captain of the team told me not to worry they always looked out for a new man. I started to worry.

I liked working in the outside shop. I learned to cut with an acetylene torch and to electric weld. When ever there was a electrical problem I would volunteer to help so I could learn.

When the weather warmed up I wanted to get Denise out of the apartment. Fairmont had some tennis courts which no one used so we bought a couple of rackets. It was a big mistake for me, Denise was good and I was hapless. She would run me from one side of the court to the other till I couldn't walk, I should have bought two baseball gloves. ---One day that summer Walter Odell the underground maintenance Forman came to the outside shop and sat on the anvil spitting tobacco juice and making a disgusting mess. Most miners chew tobacco, It is a violation of state law to smoke underground, because all of the mines liberate methane gas that is highly explosive. Walter called me over and told me, Consol was opening a new mine called Loveridge and would need 33 new mechanics. He ask me if I would like to go back under ground and train to be a mechanic. I could have kissed him tobacco juice and all. I went back under ground and worked with one of the old mechanics and began to learn my trade. I got a nice raise also.

Things were looking up and then one night I got a call to report to the mine rescue station, Clinchfield No. One Mine was on fire. I was about to find out why they called mine rescue men, Smoke Eaters.

I worked in coal mines for 40 years and I have never come up with a good way to describe a mine or the way coal is mined. I once read that if you want to know what a coal mine looks like go into a dark room and close your eyes, that's what it looks like. It's not a good description. Every thing at the face of the coal where the coal is being mined is black. Modern mining machines generate a lot of coal dust and everything is covered with it, including the miners. I always wore a dust respirator but a lot of miners said they couldn't breath with a respirator and they ended up with black lung (silicosis) and they are no longer with us. Coal dust is highly explosive. A mine explosion starts with a build up of methane gas, (natural gas, like you use to heat your home) a spark ignites the gas and that blows the dust into the air and it's the dust that causes the explosion to go through the mine. To keep the dust from going into suspension the mine is rock dusted. Rock dust is pulverized lime stone that is blown all over the mine by rock dust crews on days the mine isn't working. So I finally got here, every thing away from the working face is white from the rock dust. When the mine rescue team got to the mine fire at Clinchfield, we found out the mine had been evacuated and there was no one hurt. We would be going in to seal off the section, that was on fire, from the rest of the mine. It was an eight heading (eight tunnels) section that was on fire. The mine was ventilated by a twelve foot diameter fan it pulled the air in an intake shaft and out through the fan.

The only phone I saw at the mine was always in use and I couldn't call Denise and tell her that I was OK. I was worried about her being alone, worrying about what was going on. When we got in the mine the plan was the six mine rescue teams would build six stoppings (concrete block walls) across six headings leaving one for intake air and the other for return air so the fire area would be ventilated and methane would not build up to the explosive range (5% to 15%). Then four of the teams would leave the mine and the two remaining teams would seal the two remaining headings and hope they could get out of the mine before the gas built up over the fire and there was an explosion. If the fire used up the oxygen before the methane reached the explosive range the mine could be saved. The captain of our team told us we were the most experienced team and we would stay and build the last stopping in the return air. That meant we would be working in all of the smoke from the fire. Andy Dolog and Harley Slaughter who were block layers would build the wall, the captain would mix the concrete for them and Steve and I would carry the blocks to them. I never liked the self contained breathing apparatus it was hard for me to breathe and the eye pieces always fogged up. I ask Andy what I would do if the gas mask fogged up and I couldn't see. He said "don't worry it will be so smokey you won't be able to see anyway. I would get a block and a state mine inspector would hold a door open into the return air heading, I would go into the smoke and rub my shoulder along the tunnel wall till I saw lights through the smoke. I would return and get another block, it seemed like this went on for hours. I was going in with a block and saw four lights coming at me, I dropped the block and followed them when we got in the fresh air Harley said we are done, let's get the hell out of here. We ran to the mine jeep (a small rail trolley). I had the fastest jeep ride I have ever had. When we got out side they wanted us to stay around to see if the seals blew out. I was having a cup of coffee and chain smoking, Andy came over and sat by me and said "were you afraid when we were working in the smoke, I said no I wasn't afraid. He said "I guess you didn't know what was going on".

You could always tell when Les Ryan, a state mine inspector, came into the room. He smoked those crooked Italian cigars that made everyone in the room dizzy. Les told us they had called for a drill rig to put a bore hole down to the fire area so they could monitor the oxygen content and no one would be going back into the mine till the oxygen was depleted. He said they thought the seals would hold and we could go home.

I was never so glad to get home. Denise had done a lot of worrying, I assured her there was nothing to this mine rescue stuff; she could always tell when I was lying.

When I got to work the next day I talked to the captain of the rescue team, Albert Powell and he told me the seals held and the air samples showed the oxygen was depleted and they would leave the mine closed for thirty days for a cooling off period and then reopen it if every thing is OK. The mine superintendent told me he heard I had performed well and the company appreciated what I had done. I guess that meant the company was glad I hadn't run away and the money they spent training me wasn't wasted. It was about a week later the maintenance foreman called me in and told me he was putting me on a continuous miner section as mechanic. That meant I would be on my own and I knew I wasn't ready. One of the old mechanics told me if you get in over your head, start doing something even if it's wrong and call the inside shop for help. I did that a lot.

We got a nice check from Clinchfield coal company. My first mine rescue job was a success but there were a lot more to come that weren't nearly as successful.

Coal mining is the most dangerous occupation. I will try to share with you why that is true. There have been a lot of miners killed in mine explosions and fires but most fatal accidents come from roof falls. When I started work in the mines the roof was supported by timbers that consisted of a 8 inch by 8 inch by 12 foot bars. The bar was held against the top by a roof jack while post were cut and wedged under each end. A bar was placed every 3 feet through out the mine. When I was a kid I would sit on the hill side and watch the train loads of coal come out of the mine and the coal cars being dumped and the empty cars being loaded with bars and post and being hauled back in the mines. It seemed to me like as much wood went back in the mine as coal came out. While I was away serving my country and wasting the tax payers money in England, a guy a lot smarter than any coal miner invented the roof bolt. Bear with me, this will take some explaining, The top in the Pittsburgh seam of coal consist of three feet of shale rock just above the coal, then there is about twelve feet of harder rock, then sand stone. The shale is very unstable if it is exposed to the air and moisture, so six inches of coal is left at the top when it is mined. The roof bolt consist of a 3/4 bolt 5 feet long, a 6 inch plate that has a hole in the middle and a expansion nut. The nut is like the ones you use to hang things on a plaster wall, The tighter you make it the more it expands. A roof bolt machine drills a 6 foot hole in the top and the bolt is placed in the hole with the nut in the hard rock and the plate on the bottom and it is tightened by the machine, it holds the head coal and the shale together. It works more or less but the old coal miners never trusted roof bolts, they said it was like hanging your hat on a sky hook. -----Now that I have tried to explain how miners support the roof I will tell you how they make the hole mess cave in. You can see a picture of a continuous miner here. http://www.joyglobal.com/joymining/index.jsp

Picture in your mind a continuous miner cutting 8 headings (tunnels) through the coal 100 feet apart then there are cross headings every 100 feet. This leaves 100 foot blocks of coal called pillars. A mine map looks like a checker board with all of the blocks that are left. It is easy to see that there is a lot more coal left in the pillars than is mined so when the advancing section reaches the property line it becomes a retreating section called a pillar line. The pillars are removed by driving a headings through the first pillar next to the property line. A three foot slab of coal is left on one side of the miner and the rest of the block on the other side. When the miner has gone all the way through the block and is backing out of the place the miner operator cuts holes in the three foot slab leaving three foot pillars called stumps. When the miner is pulled back and ready to cut another heading through the block the miners drill holes in the three foot stumps that were left, they tamp them up with dynamite and blow them up. When enough headings are cut through the block So the block is gone and all of the stumps are exploded, you hope the top will break up clear up through hard rock and sand stone and fall in. If you left too thick slabs and the stumps weren't shot all the way out the top will come down slowly all in one piece like a tilting table top and that will put pressure on the pillars that haven't been mined. The pillars will start to crush, the top will get bad all over the section. This is called, the section is on a squeeze. If the squeeze is bad enough the section will have to be abandoned so it is important to remove all of the coal and get good falls. The first pillar line I was on, when we had removed the first block of coal and was moving the miner over to the next block, I heard something like thunder and then loud cracking sounds. My feet started to do a little dance, I wanted to run. I saw everyone putting on their respirators. The miner operator yelled "Lord she is gona fall to the grass roots". I heard the damdest sound I had ever heard I saw a cloud of dust coming down the heading and the wind nearly blew me over. When the dust had settled every one was tickled to death, we had a good pillar fall.

A section Forman is required by law to carry three safety devices an anemometer to measure the air velocity, a safety lamp to check for methane and a roof stick. The roof stick is like a cane with a brass end on it to sound the top. If you tap the top with it and you hear a click the roof is OK, if you hear a hollow sound the top may be getting bad. Bad top is usually forgiving, before it falls it makes creaking sounds and peaces of head coal starts falling. When miners see this they say the top is working and they have time to get out of the way. But no matter how well the top is bolted and how careful everyone is, miners are killed by roof falls.

Coal Country 5

In the late nineteen fifties Denise and I were trying to save money to buy a house and get out of the garage apartment, it was a real struggle. The biggest problem was John L Lewis the president of the United Mine Workers was getting old and it was obvious he would have to be replaced. In nineteen  thirty when John L was forming the union, he laid down a cardinal rule that no UMW member would ever cross a Picket line. This meant that any member of the union who hoped to take over the union when John L retired could get a few members behind him, call a strike for some made up reason and have one man at the gate of each mine. He would wave down each car and say this is a picket line. Soon there were a lot of parked cars and a crowd and every one would turn around and go home. That evening the guy who called the strike would be on the local TV and in the news papers telling everyone how he would save the union. These strikes weren't authorized by the UMW and were called wild cat strikes. All they ever accomplished was everyone missed a pay day.

While all of the wild cat strikes were going on I got my second call to a mine fire. When I got to the mine the team was already loading up the rescue stuff and Albert told me the fire was at Clinchfield number 4 mine and there was a continuous miner crew trapped in by the fire. I rode with Andy in the company pickup truck, we were having trouble keeping up with the rest of the team and Andy said "I don't know why they're driving so fast if the crew is in by the fire they're dead. When we arrived they told us the Clinchfield team was already inside and as soon as we got our equipment on, they took us in. We met with the state and federal mine inspectors and they told us the Chlinchfield team had found all seven of the miner crew and were bringing out the bodies but there was a young mining engineer who was on that section to get underground experience and he was still missing. Our team was assigned to search for him. They had short circuited the air over the fire and sent most of the smoke straight into the return, it wasn't so smoky that we couldn't see but we needed our breathing apparatus. I was going up the number 4 heading and felt a blast of cold air on the back of my neck, I looked and saw a power bore hole with an electrical cable coming in the mine. The air from out side was being pulled in it. When I got to the next cross cut I saw two of our team signaling with their lights for the rest of us to come to them. They had found the engineer and he was lying on the ground, still alive. He was breathing really hard and was making loud groaning noises. Harley had carried a stretcher with him, we put him on it and carried him to fresh air as fast as we could go. One of the rescue teams that had just got inside, put an oxygen mask on him and rushed him out of the mine. They had a ambulance waiting to rush him to the hospital. The only thing left to do in the mine was seal the fire. The Clinchfield team built the concrete block wall (seal) in the return air in all of the smoke. We built the seal in the track heading, there was a flat car of blocks right where we built the seal and all I had to do was hand Harley and Andy the blocks. I found out they didn't use a trowel like block layers use. Albert mixed the cement and they grabbed hands full of the cement and smeared it on the blocks and slapped them in place. The seal didn't have to look good they just had to be airtight. When we got out of the mine they told us the young engineer had died on the way to the hospital. All eight men had died of carbon monoxide poisoning. We thought we had saved someone and we hadn't. It was a sad time. Then there was an explosion and the seals blew out. It was a small mine, The Inspectors and mine management decided to seal all of the mine openings outside. They would not need the rescue teams. I told Les Ryan about the bore hole I found on the fire section and they would need to seal it. Les said " I'll be damned, if that crew had known that, they could have all gone to that bore hole and breathed the fresh air coming in and they would have been fine till you all got to them. We lost 8 men and the mine, It was a true disaster.

I have enjoyed writing this blog but I didn’t enjoy this segment, too many bad memories. I'll enjoy writing the next essay less. 1959 was the worst year of my life.

Ross