Coal Keeps The Lights On
Posted on March 24, 2008 | By Denny Tyler | 7 Comments
Picture this…
You have worked your entire life in the coal mines. On your meager retirement you plan to live out your life in the peace and quiet of the mountains. You have a comfortable house with a wooden fence. You have a well dug by your grandfather that is thirty feet deep and taps into water that taste better than bottled water, no comparison. You have a nice little garden in the same spot year after year providing fresh vegetables all summer with enough to can to last through the winter. You want for nothing because there is nothing else you truly need.
You know all of your neighbors by name and you are comfortable with that. You cry with them at the passing of a loved one and you laugh with them at weddings. You live in a peaceful community. A community in every sense of the word.
Then one afternoon you hear and feel an explosion. Your windows rattle and your grandmothers portrait falls from over the mantle crashing to the floor. The frame, as old as the picture it contained, suddenly ruined. You thank God it’s over and wonder of it’s origin. You think, although tragic, you can get another frame for the photo but in the meantime you hang it back on the wall, most likely saying a little prayer for the disrespect.
But then it happens again the next day… and the next… and the next. You get tired of picking up the picture so instead you just lay it on the mantle and think what is the use in buying another frame – the walls no longer hold pictures. For the first time in your life, you are afraid. The coal industry has moved in and they are here to take the mountains.
There is nothing you can do to stop the earthquakes. There is not a house built in West Virginia able to withstand daily concussions. Most of these houses in the hollows are older than the residents who reside within. They were built to withstand the weather.
All of the sudden your world is going to hell in a handbasket and there is nothing you can do to stop it. If you want pictures on your walls you have to anchor them with screws on all four corners. Forget about the garden because the new floods will wipe it and the well out. In most cases the coal industry has taken from you in one way or another already, be it your health or that of a loved one. Now they are there to finish you off by taking all that you have left – your independence, forcing you into a world of unfamiliarity. A world where you used to be able to provide for yourself but now you have to rely on the system.
You rent a small apartment somewhere, hang grandmothers wrinkled portrait on the wall, and hope life ends sooner than you originally hoped. Everything you know is gone. Even the old cemetery that contained grandma herself. You look out the kitchen window at the apartment building across the street and try to picture the old apple tree in the backyard that was still in full bloom in your mind. You remember family reunions in the hollow. Kids playing in the creek, plenty of good food, plenty of laughing – all gone.
Instinctively you reach for a light switch that is already in the off position. You don’t want to contribute to another losing everything because – coal keeps the lights on.
Our remnants of wilderness will yield bigger values to the nation’s character and health than they will to its pocketbook, and to destroy them will be to admit that the latter are the only values that interest us. – Aldo Leopold
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March 25th, 2008 @ 11:41 am
And so goes the life, culture and sustainablilty of the Appalachian people.
Great post Denny. There’s truth in every word of it.
And sadly, the blasting is just the beginning.
March 25th, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Exactly Matthew – just like that everything is gone.
And yes the blasting is just the beginning – it is the mountain version of shock and awe.
March 11th, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
You know what – perhaps if you spent a good month in the Appalachian mountains and saw the struggles that people go through then you would change your story. People seem to ooh and aaah at the beauty of the mountains. Naturally – they are God’s great beauty. But how many in America would give up their plumbing, Starbucks, and easy life to live the rough life of the Appalachians. I was born and raised in Eastern KY. I felt the blasts of the coals mines all my life. Yes – it is shame…however this is the ONLY WORK SOURCE of INCOME for the people of Eastern KY and West Virgina. If it were NOT for Coal, you would not be using your nice electric right now. MOST people in America have NO CLUE and judge the Appalachian people as ignorant and inbreed morons. STOP Judging and see the TRUTH. Coal does KEEP the LIGHTS on. Perhaps if YOU and lovely Liberal OBAMA LOVERS would give more resources to the people of Eastern KY and West Virgina, we could have less people on Government funding, cleaner and safer environment. Until then – DEAL with it and continue to Use America’s cheap resource.
March 11th, 2010 @ 6:10 pm
You know what – don’t come here preaching your coal keeps the lights on crap to me. For your information I don’t have to come to Appalachia, I live here already AND I have a mountaintop removal site for a neighbor.
Maybe coal does keep the lights on but only about 5% of the coal that keeps the lights on comes from mountaintop removal coal mining. I have seen the struggles brought on the people of Appalachia usually brought on them by the coal industry. I was born and raised here to. You can’t justify mountaintop removal with jobs. Mountaintop removal destroys any chance for long term growth while destroying the mountains heaping ever more hardships on the people of Appalachia.
This is not a blog against coal – this is a blog against mountaintop removal coal mining. I’m getting pretty damn sick and tired of you pro-mountaintop removal folks insinuating that those of us fighting the destruction to our homes via mountaintop removal are fighting a battle against coal. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it one last time – I wouldn’t give a damn if you were blowing up the mountains for earth worms. Mountaintop removal is destroying everything we as Appalachians value, our mountains.
There are a lot less destructive methods of mining coal than simply blowing off the tops of the mountains.
March 11th, 2010 @ 10:40 pm
And you know what the really sad part is Denny?…We don’t have to “picture this.” Everyday is a living reminder of all our yesterdays. Everyday we see bits & pieces of our traditions & our heritage being “stripped” away. We need to take all the pictures we can of the things we never dreamed we would have to. I seriously wonder if our childrens children, will ever get to feel the dirt road beneath their bare feet as they walk up a holler, {hollow}. Will there even be any “hollers” by then? I seriously wonder alot of things as I witness my past, my present, & my future tumble to the ground all around me. Forever gone.
I hate Mountain Top Removal & everything it thinks it stands for. Absolutely no good will ever come from it.
My dad dug coal. He gave us values & traditions without blowing our heritage up to get it.
My definition of a “coal miner” is a person underground, surrounded by low places, just 6 inches from hell.
I’m a “real” coal miners daughter. And proud of it.
January 7th, 2012 @ 11:38 pm
Crystal, I honestly believe your the only person that has posted a comment that is true and real life. People need to face it coal does power the U.S, it also has to be mined.And it’s also bad that people care more about mountains than peoples jobs and livelihood. Anti coal mining people would change their attitude quick if they where supporting a family by coal mining. My family has been in the coal industry for 4 generations, 2 of which has been surface mining sorry there are some people in Appalachia that want to make a good living instead of making minimum wage or being a lazy ass that lives off the government. And yes coal keeps the light on! God bless all coal miners an their jobs.
January 8th, 2012 @ 9:28 pm
Jason usually I delete ignorant comments like yours. It’s the same old song and dance. I don’t think you pro-mountaintop removal folks could come up with an original idea if your life or livelihood depended on it.
I think you are cowards, plain and simple… too afraid and/or too stupid to learn a new trade.
Bring an argument or keep your ass on the porch with all the other lap dogs.