Spoken Like Poetry


Spoken by Judy:

My daddy was a mountaineer before he was a coal miner.
God made mountaineers.
Man – and greed – made coal miners.
I’m sorry but that’s the truth.

My daddy mined coal to make money.
I prize my sense of being a mountaineer,
My sense of place more than I prize the money that coal mining brought,
And if I knew then what I know now,
I would rather my father have lived off the land.
I would rather not have had any materialistic things,
because my father suffered mightily from black lung.
It broke his body.
It broke him.
He died six months after he retired.

And coal does that to people.
It breaks a man’s back.
It breaks his spirit.
You see what it does to people –
That they’re willing to allow their children to be poisoned so that they can make a living.

Coal does bad things to you.



This material originally appeared in Plundering Appalachia: The Tragedy of Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mining. The book was edited by Tom Butler and George Wuerther and it was published by Earth Aware Editions in 2009. The material was printed as a transcript of a spoken interview. I copied the transcript verbatim then I edited it by simply changing the sentences in paragraphs to lines in a “poem”.

Emerald

Here is a story about Jerry West which may or may not be true:

In the 1956-57 season, several years before he became professional star with the Los Angeles Lakers, Jerry was a player on the freshman basketball team of the West Virginia University Mountaineers. He completed a successful season and he looked forward to the team banquet at the end of the season.

He was terribly shy and he struggled to get a date for the banquet. He finally had to settle for asking someone who didn’t know anything about basketball or his team mates.

While Jerry and his date were enjoying the meal Jerry was indicating the various coaches and players and telling her their names and talking about them.

Just as Jerry said, “and there’s Hot Rod Hundley”, his date exclaimed, “That looks like a panda to me!”

“It is a panda”, agreed Jerry, “but it is also Hot Rod Hundley”.

“How could a panda possibly be good at playing basketball?” asked his date.

“You might not expect it, explained Jerry, but that panda is a very talented basketball player. He is a senior and the team leader. We put him in a basketball uniform and do the best we can to make him look like a human being. To tell the truth the team wouldn’t be successful without him. He’s short and he’s slow, but he can dribble behind his back and between his legs. He often takes hook shots at the foul line and sometimes he hangs on the rim and waits for me to throw him a lob pass. He spins the ball on his fingers, rolls it down his arm, and even rolls it behind his back. In addition to all the daredevil maneuvers and antics he’s really a hot shooter so that’s why we call him ‘Hot Rod’.”

Jerry’s date did the best she could to accept what Jerry was saying about Hot Rod but she noticed what Hot Rod was eating and asked, “What is that strange stuff he is eating?”

“Since Hot Rod is a panda he requires a special diet, replied Jerry. It’s an especially difficult challenge to find food for him on team road trips because he just eats shoots and leaves.”

After the dinner it was the Mountaineer tradition to go to the gym and play a game of HORSE before the awards ceremony. Even though Hot Rod only took hook shots from the three point range he won the HORSE game. Later as they were moving back to the dining area Jerry’s date noticed Hot Rod shuffling down the hall on the way to the exit. She asked Jerry, “Isn’t Hot Rod going to stay for the awards ceremony?” “Oh no”, answered Jerry, “It’s Hot Rod’s tradition to never stay for the awards ceremony. He just eats, shoots, and leaves.”

Copyright (c) 2010
eMeRaLD Effect Enterprises

To Be a Mountaineer

It’s a good night to be a Mountaineer wherever you may be.
It’s a good night to be a Mountaineer whatever you may see.
From Huntington to Martinsburg,
From Morgantown to Parkersburg,
It’s a good night to be a Mountaineer wherever you may be.

It’s a good day to be a Mountaineer no matter where you are.
It’s a good day to be a Mountaineer no matter near or far.
Sometimes we move to “foreign parts”,
But West Virginia keeps our hearts.
It’s a good day to be a Mountaineer no matter where you are.

It’s a good time to be a Mountaineer whatever work you do.
It’s a good time to be a Mountaineer, we all depend on you.
You cut the timber, you work the mines,
You build our homes, you teach young minds.
It’s a good time to be a Mountaineer whatever work you do.

It’s a great life to be a Mountaineer as long as you’re with me.
It’s a great life to be a Mountaineer, our love is strong, you see.
We stick together through thick and thin,
We play together, we play to win!
It’s a great life to be a Mountaineer as long as you’re with me.

Words and Music
Copyright (c) 2006
eMeRaLD Effect Enterprises