In the summer of 1954, Bull Mountain's winding road was a well-traveled track of dirt and dark dust. Coal trucks smudged everything in their wake. Every time I took in clothes, I had to exorcise the black demon from them.
One miserable August afternoon, I unclipped laundry from the line and smacked the heavy air with worn towels and sheets. I muttered -- under my breath, of course. It wouldn't do for a child of the UMWA to be caught cursing coal. My father was worming his way through the earth's black intestines at that very moment.
"Puttin' Up for Hard Times." Jimson Weed, vol. XXIV, new series vol. 8, no. 1 (Spring 2005).
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