AppalachianFolkA Collection of Appalachian Stories

I come from a long line of coal miners.  My father was a coal miner until he was injured in the mine.  Both of my grandfathers were coal miners as well.  Many men in my family entered the mine in order to provide for their wives and children.  Some are still there today.

As a young child I really didn’t think much of coal mining.  It was a way of life.  I remember my father coming home from work, always tired but with a smile on his face and the only recognizable part of him would be his eyes.  Other than that he was completely black from head to toe in coal dust.  He usually saved me a little treat out of his dinner bucket (they did not call it a lunch bucket) and I really looked forward to that.  I never worried about my father being killed in the mine, although looking back, I’m sure I should have been.  He was accident prone.  My father left the mine when I was still in elementry school due to an eye injury which left him blind in one eye.  Before that he had other brushes with death as he had his head smashed and his ear nearly severed when he was caught in a piece of machinery.  Even after my father lost his eye, he tried to return to the mine.  All he worried about was providing for his family.  It was not to be, however, and for that I am grateful. 

Instead of returning to the mine, my dad went to school at Mayo Technical School in Paintsville, KY.  I believe that school was eventually absorbed into the Ky Technical College System.  At any rate, I watched my father study in his bedroom quite a bit.  Perhaps that is what gave me the drive to go so far in school.  Failure and quiting were not an option that I had been shown and so I never thought about not continuing my education.   

Eventually my dad opened his own electronics shop in Louisa, KY called Electronic’s Plus.  My mother ran it with him.  It was located by the train tracks on main street in town.  It is no longer there.  My father is now an Instructor of Electronic Engineering in Lexington, KY at Spencerian College.  He still continues his own education at Liberty University.  Education will always be a part of his life as it is the tool that saved his life, in my opinion. 

I thank God that my father is no longer underground and I thank God for the men and women that still go into those desolate places every day to provide for their families and for the needs of our nation.