Mine Remembered

Mine Remembered

It had been rough getting back here.  The last time I was here I came on horseback.  My three-year-old Roam didn’t think anything much of rough terrain.  The ’32 Chevy Contender that got me here today protested mightily the whole way. 

After pouring myself out of the seat and arching my back to let the kinks out.  I turned to my grandson that was just shy of 16 years, “Here it is.  I spent two long years of my life here.”  I forced a smile for him.  “I was just about your age.”

“It’s falling down, Grandpa.”

“That it is, Boy.  You oughten to have seen it in its heyday.”  I pointed to the weathered gray building, further most right.  “That was administration.  I help raise that structure.  It still standing.  Says a lot for cedar and rough-hewn pillars.  A few of the supports in there still have roots in the ground.”

“When were you here last?”

“Over half a century now.  I remember driving ten penny nails in the roof joists.  The backside of the administration building is only nine or ten feet off the ground.  We’d slide down and leap off like we were a bunch of crows taking air.  Then hit the ground rolling.”  Ralphy came to mind.  “That is till Ralphy broke his ankle.  The foreman said no more jumping.  We had to use the ladder like normal folk.”

“Let me show you the other side.”  I commenced leading him up the sandy shale embankment.  I started out with a limp until I got some lubricant to working in my left knee.  The little slope was slippery, and I ended up crab walking it up.  I thought about there was a time when I’d hit a spot like this at a run and never look back.  We finally, made our way through the rubble and came out on the other side.

“Boy, look up that there hill.   Now, just imagine a wall of fire the height of a tall horse, from that rise to this bellowing down on you.”  I swept my arm across the landscape covering the territory to the horizon.

“Wow, were you scared?”

“No time for that.  We’d were nearly complete with the new building, and we were determined to beat that fire back.  Why it came right down within spittin’ distance of our mine.”  I looked at the green hills and wondered how was it we nearly lost the whole place but for expending our lives energy putting out the fire and the place has lasted another fifty plus years since.  Another fire like that and there be nothing here.

“What did you do, Grandpa?”

“Well, we hunkered down with shovels and hoes and started pulling back the vegetation as far up as we could reach without gettn’ deep fried.  We were bound to deprive that fire of any more fuel.  At the end, when it reached the end of our line we commenced to throwing shovels of dirt on it.”  I remembered the heat and sweat pouring off us.

“The fire was out to defy us.  It spits red hot ash into the air that landed on the Roofs.  We had a couple lads on each roof that stamped them out soon as they lit.  But they were coming mighty fast and hot.”  I grinned.  Here I was winding myself telling the tale.  At that time I was in fatigable, although I was just a runt of a kid.

“I tell you, grandson, it was a long ten hours we fought that blaze.  When it was all over, there wasn’t an eyebrow in the place as they’d all been burned off.  A couple of the older fellows kept pattin’ out their beards.” 

“Can we get in the mine, Grandpa?”

“Don’t know, let's crawl in there and see.  I’ve got lots to tell you about this place.”