Under Ground

Under Ground

Carl never thought it would come to this. He’d actually sworn to himself while growing up, that he’d never step foot inside a mine. He remembered how, as a kid, he’d fear for his father off in another county, “baching” as they called it, with his Uncle Joe.

He guessed it was called baching because they had to care for themselves, so they were sort of part-time bachelors while away from home and working at the mine.

He’d feared so much for his father’s life because not long before his father went to work at that mine, another mine had exploded, killing many men, and trapping many others.

He’d been watching one of his favorite shows on TV that Saturday morning he’d heard of the explosion, and he was so glad that his father didn’t work in a mine. He also remembered when his father and his Uncle Joe suddenly came home on another Saturday morning.

The two of them had decided they weren’t gong to work in that mine anymore, because the vein of coal was only four feet high. It’s very hard to work in a mine like that as you can imagine, and especially more so, the taller a miner is.

Now, Carl would be entering a mine for the very first time; to work there. It was the most unbelievable thing he’d ever committed himself to doing. But he had a new wife, pregnant with his child, and it was one of the highest paying jobs in the area. He was lucky that his father knew the mine foreman. It’s why he got the job.

He had no idea what he’d experience that first day, three hundred and ninety some feet underground. He had the hardhat, the classic miner’s lunch pail/water container-in-one that miners called a dinner bucket, the rubber boots with steel toes… everything he’d need to be a miner; except knowing what new miners do in a mine.

He didn’t really think he had the heart for mining work, but he was going to do it regardless, and he’d make the best of it, he told himself.

First, he had to get acquainted with the bathhouse. Miners put their belongings into a basket connected to a chain that ran through a pulley connected at the ceiling of the bathhouse.

Once belongings were safely inside the basket, pulling the chain would bring the basket to the ceiling, and securing it with a padlock would keep it there.

They would hang their work clothes on the basket before going home, to wear again the next day. Most wore the same work clothes for a week.

The mine supplied the miner’s light and battery; the light connected to the hardhat and the battery went into a pouch on the belt. A miner who had been assigned to show him how everything operated “outside” now informed him that he’d join the other miners going into the mine shortly and they’d all walk down a four-hundred steps-plus stairway.

His father had told him about this aspect of entry into this particular mine, as he knew some of the miners that worked there. Still, it took some getting used to. He noticed the miners descended the steps with a swing-like gait. Soon, he was following their lead and the descent then seemed easier to him.

Luckily, the steps were only used to enter the mine. At the end of the shift, the miners would get into one of the cars that normally carried coal out of the mine, and would be pulled out on tracks by a winch outside. That would come some eight hours later.

Once he got to the bottom, the “bottom” being a miner’s term for the floor of the mine, he followed the man he was told to follow, a “section boss” named Jay Smith, into some sort of vehicle that was on tracks. Soon one of the miners took control of the vehicle and they were all off to the “section” this crew was working.

Arriving at the section, Carl got out of the vehicle along with the others and followed them to what they called the “dinner hole.” This was a canvassed-off small “room” in which there was some sort of electrical coil that was red hot, inside of a metal box with a grid on top.

This thing was there to keep the dinner hole warm, and stuff could be heated on it as well.

He had absolutely no idea whatsoever what kind of “work” he’d be doing, since he had no experience doing anything related to mining. Jay Smith, being the leader he was, after making a few jokes about mine work, told Carl that he wanted a bunch of old posts moved out of a muddy area he showed him.

So that was Carl’s first task… which lasted the whole shift, while the rest of the crew were doing their jobs at the face, loading coal.

The face is where the cutting and loading of the coal was being done by machinery.

He had gloves, and he was going to get dirty anyway, since everyone who works in a coal mine comes out with coal dust all over them, so he got right into moving those posts. They were wet and they were muddy, and he was soon that way too.

By the end of the shift, Carl was covered with mud. He was wet and tired. One of the younger miners, a guy named Gary, looked at him and said, “Jeezus buddy, you sure are sloppy!”

“Well, I had to move the posts and they were in muddy water,” Carl replied. “You don’t have to get wet though,” Gary said, “if you get wet you go outside. It’s the law.”

So Carl learned something from Gary that Jay Smith didn’t bother telling him, while Jay Smith stood there, laughing at him.

“Well, this will never happen again,” Carl told himself.

They rode the vehicle that Carl now knew was called a “tram” out of the section they’d worked in, to the same place where they’d come down the steps eight hours earlier. Off to the right was where they’d wait for the car that would carry them out of the mine. A really old guy miners all called “Pappy” worked the car mechanism.

By the looks of Pappy, Carl wondered if he lived in the mine.

Outside again, back on top of the earth rather than being inside it, felt good. He was certainly the most filthy miner to emerge from the mine that day, and he knew how obvious he must’ve looked to all of the other miners.

Getting out of the filthy clothes, and then a hot shower, made him feel a lot better. He wondered what he’d do the next day. It wouldn’t be moving posts, and he wouldn’t be getting as filthy, now that he knew some of the rules.

But what would he do for day two?

_{Under Ground © free-reign 2020}

Sources for images used in this post:

Public Domain photos are from Wikipedia Commons:

_{Descending: Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay
Miner: Image by Russell Lee / Public domain
Mine Bathhouse: Image by Russell Lee / Public domain
Miner2: Image by Russell Lee / Public domain
Miners: Image by Russell Lee / Public domain}