A ROADSIDE DINER

A ROADSIDE DINER

KENNETH E. HALL    JULY 31, 2017    HOUSTON

 As a young Child of the Fifties, I remember many trips in our 1951 Dodge with my Mom. Sometimes, those jaunts would involve some nighttime driving, and there were no Interstate superhighways way back when.
Along the highways and byways that we travelled, I remember waving at people as they sat on their front porches as we drove by, and they'd wave back at me! I also remember those old gas stations where we'd fill up with $2 worth of regular, and get the oil changed and the tires checked, too. Most of all, though, I fondly recall the roadside diners.
Some nights, we'd pull into one of those places - you know the kind I mean: the name was in neon lights overhead, and there was always one of the letters that flickered and buzzed.
Inside, there were booths and a row of stools along a counter. On top of the counter and on every table were little glass boxes that had lists of songs that the juke-box had. If you wanted to hear a song, you would insert a nickel. If you put in a quarter, you could hear SIX selections! (Problem was to get a whole quarter out of Mom!!!)
If you were like me, you'd run right over to the juke box and watch the mechanism locate and select a 45 rpm record, place the platter onto the turntable, and watch as the needle descended. That was hi-tech back then!

♫ Then, the most wonderful music came out!! Tennessee Ernie Ford, the Ames Brothers, or Hank Williams would play. Sometimes someone else would put on a rock and roll song by the Coasters, or, if you were lucky, you could even hear Elvis!!! And you heard those all for FREE!
They were all there, all of those great tunes, in that neon and glass time capsule of music that still lingers sweetly in my mind.

In every roadside diner you've ever been to, there was always a wise, understanding, dark-hared, waitress named Flo, who somehow knew that a little kid liked plenty of ketchup with his hot dog. There was a serious redhead waitress named Becky who worked the booths, who was just about to get off after working hard all day and part of the night, but she still had time to stop by and say hi to a road-weary mother and her little boy.
Then there was the new waitress named Dixie - plump, young, and eager to please. She kept Mom's coffee cup filled, and her smile brightened the night as much as her cheery voice did. After that nice dinner, we could drive all the way to Chattanooga!
Funny how you remember the little things, though. What I noticed about those old diners was the small coffee creamers. These were tiny glass flasks of milk that were in the shape of old 1940's milk bottles.

GLASS CREAMER FROM MY DAD'S DINER IN HAVRE DE GRACE, MD

Every time I see one of those old diners, or rather their reproductions, it takes me back to a time when the roads were narrower, the street lights were white, there was no self-service gas, and there was always a good, hot meal waiting.
Years later, as a grown man, I got into sales, and had to travel with my suitcase and the open road.
I preferred to drive at night, and halfway through, I'd stop in at a roadside diner, or what passes for one these days, and ask the waitress to get me a hot cup of coffee to get me to my destination.
Coffee isn't a dime any more, though, and dimes are not made of silver either.
I haven't seen those little glass creamers on the counter for a very long time. Hank Williams is dead and gone - heck, so is Elvis! The music died long, long ago.
But the warm feeling I had back in the Fifties would still come back to me, even if there was no 1951 Dodge parked out front, or a neon-lit juke box around to play those wonderful old songs.
I think we all have these memories, or similar ones.
Cherish them all.

♫ As the old song said: "We will have these moments to remember!"♫


FIf you enjoyed reading this, here is a link to a related story: http://kennyduke.blogspot.com/2014/04/1958.html  (Dink Dink!)

The Battle of New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans
KENNETH E. HALL         JULY 31, 2018         HOUSTON


One Saturday night in the late '60's, a New Orleans TV station presented a movie called "The Buccaneer." The title got my attention, since what could be neater than a PIRATE movie for a 15-year-old kid, right? It got better: it was a Cecil B. deMille production, so I knew this was going to be a no-holds-barred, grandiose cinematographic masterpiece, with a "Cast of Thousands!" Turned out, the movie was about none other than the legendary "pirate" - Jean Lafitte!  This I HAD to see!

I got into the movie - and it transported me back into time - to 1815 - 150 years into the past! So there they were - Andrew Jackson's men, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with buccaneers, slaves, and New Orleans citizens - their backs toward their homes and city, facing the flanks of a mighty enemy that was far more powerful than they were. The hair stood up on the back of my neck as the skirl of bagpipes wafted in through the predawn fog of a Chalmette field, and the first Redcoats, armed to the teeth, suddenly came into view. 

Wasn't that a MIGHTY DAY!?!? I wish I had seen it on the big screen!

Decades later, I got interested in Genealogy, and began the painstaking process of linking one family member with another - like working on a giant 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing! One big break came when I learned the name of my fourth-Great-Grandmother - Charlotte MEILLEUR. Her maiden name, I discovered, was GOLDENBOW.  What a strange name, right? Odd - but beautiful at the same time.

Her father was named John, I learned, and at the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library, their Death Index showed me how to find the right microfilm. I loaded it into the machine, turned on the light and waited until the image came into focus. 

Imagine my surprise when this obit came into my view for the very first time!! I was sitting riveted to the microfilm viewer, and read: "Veteran of 1814-15" At first, I scratched my head, wondering what the heck happened in 1814-15. Then a popular tune I liked as a kid echoed through my brain, and I started humming "The Battle of New Orleans." "in Eighteen Fourteen took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson down the Mighty Mississipp'!" Then it hit me! I jumped out of my seat, hollering "Oh My GOD!!" - I'm sure startling more than a few fellow library patrons, who looked up at me from their work with mildly perplexed expressions. Truth be told, I was a bit startled by that outburst myself!

This man, my ancestor, whom I just met, was a veteran of the BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS!

Translation from the New Orleans French newspaper l'Abeille de la Nouvelle Orleans, 17 January, 1848: 

"DIED yesterday at 4pm at the age of 66 years, John GOLDENBOW, native of Germany, and resident of this city for the past 45 years. Veteran of 1814-15. His friends and acquaintances, as well as his son-in-law Michel Meilleur, are invited to attend the funeral, which will take place at 4pm. The funeral procession will leave from his former residence, 111 Chartres Street, between St. Louis and Conti.
☞ Veterans of 1814 & 15 are invited to attend."

This discovery happened the day before I visited the Chalmette Battlefield for the first time. This was where that battle took place! I had never been there before, though I had lived in New Orleans most of my life. Today I had a reason for being there. Today it was personal. I came to stand where my ancestors bravely stood so long ago. Across the highway at Rocky and Carlos Restaurant it was just another day, but for me, alone in that field, it was 1815, and I was standing on hallowed ground.

I closed my eyes and imagined Congreve rockets streaking brilliantly overhead and exploding. I heard the bagpipes and drums of the attacking Redcoats, I heard soldiers shouting, the roar of cannon, the whinny of horses, the rattle of sabers and the crackle of gunfire. I even smelled the horses and gunpowder, it was that vivid.

One can only imagine what thoughts went through those war-weary men who stood, waited, fought, and bled to protect their homes and families. One song touches on that idea that, even if one objects to war, sometimes there comes a moment when one must take a stand. After the muskets, cannon, and rockets fell silent, those left had to bury their dead, and journey all the way back to New Orleans:

"Oh, Harris, fetch thy mare, and take us out of here!
In my nine and fifty years I've never known - - -
That to call myself a man, for my loved one I must stand                                                                        Now Harris, fetch thy mare and take us home!"

                                                                       --- from HARRIS AND THE MARE byStan Rogers

Family History came alive for me that day, and I walked away from Chalmette Battlefield humbled and with a greater appreciation for the history of our country, our state, and our city - and most especially for those many and varied people from so many nations - including members of my own family - who came together to make up the wonderful gumbo that is NEW ORLEANS!

       ⚜

@Further research showed that my Fourth Great Grandfather was in the New Orleans Militia - a ragtag group of volunteers, free men who bravely took a stand between their beloved homes and the war's desolation. 

  I am proud to have not one, but several family members who took up arms to defend our city in its hour of need. All these brave people should be remembered:

"Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation...." - Star-Spangled Banner

!John GOLDENBOW and his wife Augusta EHRICH were early German immigrants from Mecklenberg state in Germany. John was a café owner and dabbled in various businesses, including the shipping business.

♫"The Battle of New Orleans" is a song written by Jimmy Driftwood. It became a hit song for singer Johnny Horton in 1959, and was one of my favorite songs of the time.

!A brief word of thanks to ℱerncrest school in New Orleans, where I learned the French language, which allowed me to read so many French family genealogical documents in their entirety without once using a dictionary. 

[This story,"The Battle of New Orleans' was written on 31 July, 2018 and is based on a commentary written 8 January, 2016 in Houston, TX.]

We Won't 'Read All About It' Anymore

We Won't 'Read All About It' Anymore


                                                                 KENNETH E. HALL     SEPTEMBER 13, 2015  HOUSTON
                                                                 [UPDATED MAY 10, 2019]


It was some time in the late Sixties....

He stood on the street corner of Canal and Basin - you know,  by Krauss - or rather where Krauss used to be? I was waiting for the St. Bernard bus, and it was running late. I was tired and hungry and just wanted to get home. The Canal Street was filled with a cacophony of noises that could tell a blind man he was on one of the city's busiest thoroughfares. But there was something more - something I had heard just about every time I ever went into town. 

I heard it again: "Get -cha PAY-pah! Get-cha STATES Pay-pah! Get-cha LATE STATES PAY-pah!" It was a repetitious staccato of slurred words in the deep brogue only a native-born New Orleanian could speak. But if you only lived there a few years, by now you knew that this man was selling one of only two daily newspapers available in the city: Either the States-Item or the Times Picayune. Being the afternoon, it was the LATE Edition of the States-Item that the old man was peddling to the crowd gathered at the bus stop, and to those walking by. 
                         

         
This guy was haggard and old now, but my guess it that he started out as a young boy, hollering "EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!" - and maybe he started from this very street corner - back in the day when the Southern Railway trains made frequent departures just across Basin Street Back then, in the Roaring Twenties, streetcars ran all over the city, and more than just a few wooden steamboats still plied their way up and down the Mississippi, making the Port of New Orleans one of the world's largest. 

The many years that passed by him had etched their way into his expressionless face like a road map that went from no-place to nowhere. He looked tired.

The paper he sold only cost a nickel, and the bus only a dime, and I had a silver dime in my pocket and a transfer from the Canal streetcar in my hand, so I bought a copy. Then, after reading all about it, whatever "it" was, I stepped back as passengers alighted from the maroon and cream-and-white colored NOPSI bus. I looked at my watch, and was happy - I'd be home in about a half-hour. I held out my transfer, the driver took off the top coupon, rang me up as a transfer fare, and I walked in and sat down, and continued reading my paper. 

Many years went by, and I was living and working in another city. The sights, the sounds, and the many wonderful things that make up New Orleans were for me but a pleasant memory, now. That terrible storm Katrina had taken away many things that I loved, and time, progress, and other events took away much of the rest. One day I decided to check in on how things were doing in my beloved Post-Katrina New Orleans. I went online and read something that made me very upset: The Times-Picayune was about to be history!!

The Times-Picayune published its *last daily edition on Sunday, October 14, 2012, and in so doing made New Orleans **temporarily, at least, the largest city in North America without a daily newspaper! It was bad enough that the city lost so many other things, but when I heard that my home town was about to divest itself of its very voice, its mirror, its daily chronicle of life, I just could not believe it! 

When I was a little boy, I often heard my grandfather decrying the Times-Picayune, saying: "The MAYOR doesn't run the city; he just THINKS he does! He's just another tin-horn politician who would sell his very soul just to get a few votes! I tell you, The New Orleans Public Service (utilities company) and The Times-Picayune run the city!" 

I never believed that diatribe, but considering the fact that the New Orleans Public Service (NOPSI) held a MONOPOLY on gas, electricity, and transit service within the city limits, and the Times-Picayune was a mighty force for swaying and forming public opinion, there might have been a grain of truth to it after all.

IT'S ALL ABOUT TRENDS! 
With the growth of television, Internet, and Cable TV news channels, printed periodicals such as newspapers, magazines and the like are fast disappearing. This trend actually started the minute the news was first broadcast on television. The decline and demise of newspapers was, from that point, inevitable. The question was not if, but when.

Those who passed notes in class as kids now post daily on Facebook. The graffiti artists of bathroom walls and tenement halls of the 1950's and 1960's are today's bloggers, and their writing can be seen around the world instantly.

Newspapers, once purchased daily and read from Page One to the Obits, from Want-Ads and Ann Landers to the comics, have, one-by-one, shut down city after city. What once cost a dime, (and cost every bit of that to print!), has become passé. 

What lines the bottom of our canary bird cages today? I wonder. 

Books, keepers of our culture, are also disappearing. No, they did not perish in the apocalyptic fires of Fahrenheit 451; they are being tossed away like last week's magazines, unread, into the dustbin of history. Some few have been saved as relics - only seen as "quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore." 

The stories these books held are themselves too lengthy to bother reading. We want "just the facts, Ma'am." (as was often said on TV's DRAGNET series.) We have no time for raconteurs — we only want the Cliff Notes version, and keep that simple, too, please. George Orwell predicted this "Newspeak" in his novel 1984. He just got the year wrong. 

Today's conversations typically occur in brief, poorly-spelled and non-punctuated "Tweets."
Even our handwriting is going away, as many schools no longer consider cursive writing "relevant." How sad.
 
Our culture has boiled down to the immediate, the concise, the mundane, and the trivial. We know the names of the three Kardashians, but we don't know the names of the three branches of our own government. REAL emotions are considered as a weakness, and words open one up not to debate or discussion, but to vile criticism. The secret to success is to fake sincerity. We sit at the table with friends, and never make eye-contact, because we are all on our cellphones. When a flight attendant asks us what our choice of beverage would be, we look up at her mindlessly, and ask her: "What is it?" We didn't even hear her because of our earphones, which blare into our ears some inane and meaningless noise that we consider music. 

So the days of the corner newsstand and paper man and even the neighborhood paperboy are now over — we won't "read all about it" anymore - at least not in in the States and the Item, nor in the Picayune, either. They are all gone - gone to join the swelling ranks of things that we look back upon. 

I wonder what will disappear next. 

On second thought, I really don't want to know.   





!* The Times-Picayune resumed daily editions, but was printed in Baton Rouge, and so it is not a TRUE New Orleans paper. The once-modern Times-Picayune/States-Item building where so many editions were laid out, edited, and printed, has been slated for demolition. **

!UPDATE: **The Times-Picayune 
Entire New Orleans Times-Picayune staff axed after sale to competitor 
READ ALL ABOUT IT: https://nypost.com/2019/05/03/entire-new-orleans-times-picayune-staff-axed-after-sale-to-competitor/?fbclid=IwAR1d9BEwOF6jJF6aVbG2ou27paGqkf8SiIRy5EBTcfVvdRq7iHVFkJMg_kc

This was originally written SEPT. 13, 2015, in Houston and rewritten July 30, 2018. It is intended to follow a story: "Madam Librarian." : http://kennyduke.blogspot.com/2014/06/madame-librarian.html

Paper Boy clipart is "Public Domain":  http://www.clker.com/clipart-paper-boy.html

As someone once said, “If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” (A quote attributed to Mark Twain, but unsubstantiated.) 

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Here is another article you may enjoy: 

http://kennyduke.blogspot.com/2014/06/madame-librarian.html

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ELEMENTARY ELEMENTS: 氣土火水

ELEMENTARY ELEMENTS: 氣土火水
KENNETH E. HALL    HOUSTON    OCTOBER 11, 2015

When I was in grammar school, I learned, I guess in forth or fifth grade, that in ancient China, they believed that everything was composed of:
氣   AIR 
土   EARTH
火   FIRE 
水   WATER
...or a combination of these four basic elements.
 This, I was told, was an oversimplification which by the time of the Renaissance had been totally discredited.
Then I took High School Chemistry, and about that same time seriously began to study the Chinese written language.
In my first Chemistry class, the teacher explained to us that there are three forms of matter: liquid, solid, and gas, and that everything in the universe is either matter or energy.
I looked at my elemental Chinese notes and noticed the four characters I wrote earlier: 氣土火水
Earth 土 = solid. 
Water 水 = liquid. 
Air       氣  = gas
Combine the three: MATTER
FIRE  火 = ENERGY!

And so maybe those ancient Chinese had it right after all!
Those things that have been in existence long, long ago, still exist today. The Ancient Ones speak to us through the rocks and the trees, and through the very blood that they passed down to us, and they tell us about this world we live in. We can benefit from their knowledge — provide we have sense enough to listen.


                     SYMBOLS: Staff of Hermes

                                     
                          Caduceus

DEF.: Caduceus, Latin, and in Greek: κηρύκειον - kērū́keion "herald's wand, or staff"; A winged staff with 2 serpents intertwined. Mythological symbol of Hermes. 
To many it is the symbol of life. We use it today as a symbol for the Medical profession.

"The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera." --- Wikipedia




The original symbol did not have snakes; it had RIBBONS. 

Some FOUR THOUSAND years later we discovered DNA, and that it is ...intertwined ribbons!! 


DNA MOLECULE
 
   https://www.publicdomainpictures.net




Maybe the ancient Greeks had it right all along!
Think about it!

A Wrong Subway Ride

• A WRONG-WAY SUBWAY RIDE                                                                      KENNETH E. HALL - DECEMBER 27, 1915      MUNICH WIKIMEDIA PHOTO EXHAUSTED from having missed last night's sleep completely, I nevertheless forced myself to go out to see Munich until my eyelids drooped... and droop they did, all too soon. After a brisk walk all around, It was time to leave the lights, hustle, and bustle of a festive Christmastime at Sedlinger Tor Platz and head back for the hotel and a nice, warm bed I knew would be there.

  I made a slight mistake in taking Subway line #6, and went the wrong way. Considering I could've drifted off to sleep at the station, this was not odd. I quickly realized my error and chuckled, but decided to stay on for a few stops further... just because... I really don't know why. I guess it could have been because I was having a ball listening to the bawdy, drunken banter of a real, honest-to-goodness Munich burger, as he comically sputtered out his opinions in the broadest of Bavarian dialect. Being kind to myself, I will say I possibly understood, well, maybe 10% of his ravings. He was having a great time talking to a couple in front of him, who, as it turned out, were visiting RUSSIANS! I was sitting behind them, and heard them commenting among themselves about the funny drunk guy. I asked them in Russian if they had any clue what he was talking about, and they said they had absolutely no idea. Then the Bavarian man got up from his seat, smiled, waved bye to all and to no-one in particular, and teetered out of the train. The doors closed and we continued onward. The next stop turned out to be a heartbreaker for me: a couple, about, say, 30 something wheeled in a very old lady — obviously a grandmother to, I believe, the lady. The couple were so kind and loving to her. This alone would have been a touching scene, but the elderly lady looked like my own grandmother so very much!! I have never in my life seen anyone who even vaguely resembled her, that is, until this very night. Even her gestures and facial expressions were so like my sweet grandmother that, although I smiled at the lady, my heart hurt as I remembered and deeply missed her. There was a lump in my throat that just wouldn't go down. It was heartwarming to see someone whose very presence brought back old memories as if she were actually there. My face must have conveyed my bittersweet feelings, or maybe it was a teardrop that betrayed my sadness. Who knows? As they turned to leave, the younger lady looked at me and gave me a kind, understanding smile, and then they were gone. Minutes later, the subway emerged from underground and now was on an outside track through the suburban countryside. My eyes were fixed on a strange glow on the distant horizon. I got another surprise when I realized what it was: a HUGE, bright orange full moon slowly and majestically rising in the clear winter sky above the Bavarian farm fields outside Munich. I wouldn't have gotten to see any of that had I not been on that exact train at that exact spot and at that exact moment! What experiences! I am glad that I took the train the wrong way that night. Very glad, indeed!

THERE's BLOOD ON THE COAL!

THERE's BLOOD ON THE COAL! 

Remember those whose blackened bodies lie imprisoned forever beneath the earth; 
their very LIVES being the price of progress.

My grandfather was born and bred in West Virginia. Mostly, in his early days, he was a machinist at a lumber mill, but when hard times hit, he went into the mines, until that gave out. Then he turned to making moonshine! Don't laugh - he had a wife and a family of seven to provide for. When times get rough, you have to be tough, and you will do what you can to feed and clothe those you helped bring into this world.

Coal mining songs have been around for many years. Like train songs and others, they have made their way from folk-ballads to top hit songs.

Why would anyone want to sing about coal mining?? Perhaps it was those old Welshmen who put just about everything they did into song - perhaps they started the tradition. Who knows? Mining is a part of Welsh, Geordie, and Appalachian folklore - among others.

Many years ago we all heated our homes, cooked our food, and ran our factories and trains by burning coal: smudgy black rocks that came from deep in the bowels of the earth - the elementary remnants of once-mighty prehistoric forests.

Men went to work in the mines in order to provide for their families. They knew the risks, and were willing to take them. After working at the mines for a while, it became a habit.It bacame a part of you.

Harry Belafonte sang, I believe, the best rendition of "Dark as a Dungeon":

 "Come all you young fellows so young and so fine;
Seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine!
It'll form as a habit - and seep in your soul - 
Till the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal!

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew;
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few;
Where the rain never falls the sun never shines - 
It's a dark as a dungeon way down in the mines!

Well it's many a man that I've seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away;
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine!

Where it's dark as a dungeon ....

And pray when I'm dead and my ages shall roll,
That my body would blacken and turn into coal;
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home,

 and pity the miner a-digging my bones!

Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew;
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few;
Where the rain never falls the sun never shines - 
It's a dark as a dungeon way down in the mines!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcEmKGIZlCc

COAL - it may just be old black rocks to some, but to us all, It came quite dear. Some paid a higher price than others - with their wealth, others with their health - and many - TOO many - with their lives, 

"There's blood on the coal,
And the miners lie 

In roads that never saw sun nor sky;
Roads that never saw sun nor sky!!"    - Ballad of Springhill (Springhill Mining Disaster song)

Many men died instantly from poison gas, accidents, or cave-ins. 

"In the town of spring hill you don't sleep easy - 
Often the earth will tremble and roar;
When the earth gets restless, miners die - 
Bone and blood are the price of coal - 
Bone and blood are the price of coal! "     --- "Ballad of Springhill" - Songwriter: Peggy Seeger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr11O2bKc3s&start_radio=1&list=RDSr11O2bKc3s
NOTE: THIS SONG WAS WRITTEN ABOUT AN INCIDENT IN OCTOBER, 1958, BUT SPRINGHILL, NOVA SCOTIA ACTUALLY HAD THREE MAJOR MINING DISASTERS.

"...Then came the day at the bottom of the mine

     When a timber cracked and men started cryin' -
     Miners were prayin' and hearts beat fast,
     And everybody thought that they'd breathed their last, 
     'cept John...."                                                       ---- "Big John" - Songwriter Jimmy Dean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy7arhKbQkQ

Many other mineworkers died very slowly and painfully from Black Lung, a pulmonary disease caused by a lifetime of inhaling coal dust. Mining was dirty and dangerous work. 

It seems strange that it is often in the coal mining areas that poverty is its worst. "Them's what works the hardest, they are the least provided!" In mining towns and villages from Wales and Newcastle to the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia - coal mining was hard, hard work and the pay was such that those who worked there became indebted to Company Stores for more than they could ever earn to repay.

"Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go - 

I owe my soul - to the Company Store."

 "SIXTEEN TONS" - "Sixteen Tons" was written by Merle Travis and recorded in 1946/ It is about a real-life coal miner in Muhlenberg County, KY.  

(This well-known 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts, and my mother even wrote about hearing the song on the radio, in a letter from Washington, D.C. This song was written as a commentary on real mining life. The main line: "You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt," apparently came from a letter written by Merle Travis' brother John. The end line is said to have come from their father, also a coal miner, who used to say, "I can't afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnsbIBzhN9U

Families did what they could to make ends meet - and this included sending their young boys down into the pit. I have heard a number of coal mining songs, and they vividly portray the sufferings of those who went down to the pit. But, as lads living in mining areas, "the pit was the place." It was where everything was happening, and it was a rite of passage for a young boy to don his helmet and lamp and report for work at the mine shaft. The boys of the village would actually look forward to school being over so they could go down to the mines to work, and thus prove their manhood.

"Schooldays' Over" was a ballad composed by Ewan MacColl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj6JZSGKf6M

"COAL TATTOO" - a coal mining folk song written by Kathy Mattea doesn't talk about the mines themselves, but rather what coal mines and mining companies and unions did to poor working people. Of all the mining songs I've heard, "Coal Tattoo" is my favorite. 

I first heard it by West Virginian folk singer Billy Edd Wheeler: 

"Travelin' down that coal-town road,
Listen to my rubber tires whine!
Goodbye to Buckeye and white Sycamore,
I'm leavin' you behind.
I've been a coal man all my life
Layin' down track in the hole,
Got a back like an iron bar bent by the wind
Blood-licks blue as the coal.
Blood-licks blue as the coal.

Somebody said "That's a strange tattoo
You have on the side of your head."
I said "That's a blueprint, left by the coal,
Just a little more and I'd be dead!
But I love the rumble and I love the dark,
I love the cool of the slate,
But it's goin' down the little road lookin' for a job -
This travelin' and lookin' I hate!

I've stood for the union, walked in the line,
Fought against the company;
Stood for the U. M. W. A.
Now who's gonna stand for me?
I got no house and I got no pay,
Just got a worried soul;
And this blue tattoo on the side of my head,
Left by the number nine coal.

Someday when I'm dead and gone
To Heaven, the land of my dreams,
I won't have to worry on losin' my job
To bad times and big machines.
I won't have to pay my money away
For dues and hospital plans;
I'm gonna pick coal where the blue heavens roll
And sing with the angel band!" ..... 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoGELNyS9mc

Miners - sons of sons of sons of colliers sons - all swore they'd never send their sons down into the pit, but before it was all over, send them down they most assuredly did - to a place where you age before your time. But with progress came newer, safer mining practices. Unsafe mines were eventually shut down and dusty coal towns could now sleep easy - and not fear the rumble in the earth and the scream of the whistle. But there were also fewer jobs to be had, now that the mines closed down. It was the end of an era. It was the end of seeing streams of black-faced miners emerge from deep underground, their families once again being thankful for their safe return. It was the end of the sadness - and the beginning of harsher poverty. It was the beginning of the out-migration from West Virginia.

*"How green was my Valley then, and the Valley of them that have gone." - Richard Llewellyn

WORKING MAN -  written by Rita McNeil & performed by Welshman David Alexander.
"It's a working man l am
And I've been down underground;
And I swear to God if ever see the sun ---
Or for any length of time,
I can hold it in my mind,
I never again will go down underground!
At the age of sixteen years,
Oh he quarrels with his peers,
Who vowed they'd never see another one
In the dark recess of the mines,
Where you age before your time
And the coal dust lies heavy on your lungs!
At the age of sixty-five,
I pray to God I'm still alive,
And the wheels above the mines no longer whine;
And they finally close the hole, 
Where we clawed for the coal,
And NEVER AGAIN will we go underground!
It's a working man l am,
And I've been down underground;
And I swear to God if ever see the sun --- 
Or for any length of time,
I can hold it in my mind,, 2018
I NEVER AGAIN will go down underground!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5QeTGcCeug

NOTES:

The UK, of course, has given birth to a a great selection of mining songs and mine folklore. Like Paul Bunyan of North American timber fame, they had their "Big Hewer" legend. He was a figure like "Big John' except that he was more a myth than a man - though many miners knew or claimed to have seen him in the flesh. His legend was put into song by famed songwriters Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDH3A1QnHo0

... 

In the area where my family came from were coal mines. There is even a coal mine museum in Beckley:
https://beckley.org/general-information-coal-mine/

*A great book on this subject is "How Green Was My Valley" written in 1939 by Richard Llewellyn. 

KENNETH E. HALL        DECEMBER 20, 2013     REVISED JULY 29, 2018   HOUSTON