Audio
Impressions and Attitudes
Transcript
When everything was going good, we was making a good living, and we was getting to work plenty. It was just a heavenly place. I was use to this area. It was pretty here. It was also pretty at Leatherwood Ford. It was pretty at Barthel and the Worley area. It was beautiful country like that. I never picked it out as the most beautiful place that I had ever seen. The thing I remembered about it was the tipple and bridge because the hollow and the camp was in so close. There was not very much land area. The pockets of coal dust kept pretty much in the area. And of course, the dust landed on the houses. I thought it was once of the worst "hell holes" I had ever seen in my life. It was our home where my father made a living. Being fourteen, I guess I wondered what guy would ever want to date somebody who lived that far away. The noise from the tipple bothered me. The dirt was the worse. The noise you could put up with. You know most mining towns are sort of dirty places. But this one was not, it was well kept. It was scenery to us raised back there in them sticks. I loved that little place. Yes the people were nice. We were all sort of together like one big family. Everybody looked after everybody else. It was just nice. And I loved nature so. I enjoyed it but my wife she had asthma. It just liked to killed her. Oh I loved it. We had good men to work for. A good bunch of men to work with. That goes a long way. You know there was not the pride in the camp like there was at Cooperative, I guess. Well I liked Fidelity because they had more houses and had more people. Well I believe I liked Yamacraw the best. I liked everyone but I knew that I wouldn't live down there. I knew it wasn't for me when I was a little girl. I knew I wouldn't stay there. I wanted something more. I daydreamed a lot. I think that's what really what kept me going; daydreaming of getting away from there. We were forty miles from nowhere and only saw a plane once every three months go over, and that was by accident. I made up my mind then that when I went into the service I had no intentions of ever coming back to the coal mines. I feel privileged for having been reared in a coal mining camp. I feel like I have something that a lot of other people don't have.
Description
Audio recording from Impressions and Attitudes Ghost Structure
Duration
2 minutes, 42 seconds
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