Walking with Dad

Every year about this time, I head for the mountain for a week with my family and doing a little hunting. My Dad and I traipse all over the old farm where I grew up, supposedly looking for our furred quarry. Often times we just look over the old place and remember.



We inevitably work our way over to the far corner of the farm, where the crows alight in the tree's and notify all creatures great and small of our presence there. We don't mind, we like the crows and watch their antics with awe. The far corner of the farm is the most inaccessible part of the property, and it is here that unwary passersby report strange happenings. People witness everything from Ol' Fon, the goat man, to catching a fleeting glimpse of a mountain lion. Dad and I usually see sign of the big, lumbering bear which makes its home in this part of the farm.

To get to the far corner of the farm, we walk through the enormous open fields, long ago cleared of rocks. These rocks were hand-picked by countless hands. Gigantic piles of rocks can be found at regular intervals throughout the fields. We remember our great-grandfathers, Fon Lawrence and Alfred Kile, who worked this land. We know that their hands toiled this farm into prosperity. It is good to remember.



In between the fields there is a low place, an almost holler that hasn't quite made it there. In this sheltered spot, an apple orchard was planted generations ago. Here, the fierce mountain winds don't reach, and it is noticably warmer than on the hilltops on each side of the almost holler. The apple orchard still produces though it has been years since it has been tended to, only now the deer and other wildlife enjoy the harvest. We still find a few late season heritage apples still clinging to the tree, which we pick and eat. The apple have a wonderful flavor and we comment how these apple taste so much better than those old hybrid things that we are forced to purchase in the grocery store these days. We recall some of the old ways and try to remember more.



Further up on the mountain, in the highest meadows, just below the jutting out of the North Mountain rocks, there is a little glen too far above the frost line to produce agriculturally but still fertile. It is here that the tree's grow to enormous heights, and it gives the impression that you are walking through forests of yesteryear, before they were logged off to fill the coffers of some far-off corporation. Probably only the inaccessibility of these forest giants saved them from the axe. They are quite a sight to see, some of these behemoths would take 7 or 8 men, linking hands with arms outstretched, to reach around them. Dad and I talk about what a terrific crash this forest giant must have made when it fell to the ground. We wonder if it was old age or a great storm that brought down this King from his forest crown. It must have been huge, because the tree's around it still haven't managed to reach the size of other tree's nearby, undoubtedly their growth was suppressed by the massive crown of the giant. We try to remember when all of the forest in these hills rivaled these remnants of history.



Finally, as we start to walk off the mountain, we see this lone tree stump in a grown over meadow. Apparently cut down a few years back, this hollow stump is now the home of a tree gnome. What? You don't believe in tree gnomes? haven't you heard, the hills of my home are magical! All we have to do is remember.

One Day in October

I took a walk in the woods...

And I wished you were there with me.

The First Snow

Though every year it comes back anew,
And wears out its welcome all too soon.




Something magical begins to take place
That rekindles memories across time and across space.




There's nothing like it so far as I know,
That wondrous sight of the very first snow!

===================================

Special thanks to Cousin Heather for sharing these photo's with us.

The School Halloween Party

I remember growing up, we always had a Halloween Party at school every year. It was always held on the Friday before Halloween. The school was Kindergarten through 12th grade, all in one building. The party started around noon and parents and the community were welcome and it always drew a big crowd. Prizes were given for the best costume, the scariest, the funniest, the prettiest, etc. It was quite the honor for students to win a prize at the annual Halloween Party, and us kids usually went out of our way to come up with a good costume so we could win. There was also lots of food to eat (cakes, cookies. etc.) and lots of candy. The community really came together to celebrate the occassion.

The Burns kids usually won for our costumes, primarily because Mom would help us make them. She told us we won because we had homemade costumes. I'm sure this was just her way of re-assuring us that our costumes were as good as everyone else's, who usually had store-bought costumes. Mom would let us decide what we wanted to dress up as for Halloween, and then she'd give us idea's on how to make that costume the best it could be.

I especially remember one year, I was probably in 2nd grade, and I couldn't make up my mind what to be for Halloween. I wanted to go scary, but the year before I was a vampire, and I didn't want to repeat that one two years in a row (although I made a fairly decent vampire).


Me as a vampire, a few year after this story took place.

My aunts told me to dress up like some movie star, primarily because they were all in love with Don Johnson and whatever the flavor of the month happened to be at that time. My Uncle Tom wanted me to be a motorcycle driver, because he was going through that phase and for some reason constantly watched "Any Which Way You Can" on our old disc player. Everyone I asked for help with coming up with an idea seemed to give me idea's that I just didn't care for.

When the annual Halloween Party was growing close (only a week away), there had been some commotion at school. My Aunt Aim had gotten into a fight with another girl and Mom and my granddad had to go into school to meet with the principal about it. Well, we Burns' have always been clannish and when one of us were in trouble, all of us were in trouble. When the time of the appointment came around, and we knew Mom and my Granddad were at the principal's office, all of us kids just walked out of class and right into the school office where the secretary was located. We were all going to attest that the fight was not my Aunt Aim's fault. Of course, all of our teachers were right behind us. Me, always being the mouthy one, and because I was the pet pig, said to my teacher when she kept telling me to return to my classroom or face the consequences, "Why don't you go somewhere where somebody wants to see you." Well that just threw the fat in the fire. That teacher started yelling at me, but my Aunt Tam quickly came to my rescue. She told my teacher, "He ain't a damn dog and you aint gonna talk to him like one." Well that just further infuriated the teacher, to the point where she was so mad that she was shaking. The school secretary knew us and how we were really good kids at heart, and knew that we were all there simply to take up for our Aunt Aim, told the teacher, "Why don't you go on back to your classroom and I'll have the principal take care of this." Well that got the teachers off our backs, and the secretary told us to have a seat until the meeting was over. Well, we didn't wait, we all barged into the meeting in the principals office and all started telling how that other girl was always picking on my Aunt Aim and how the other girl threw the first punch, and it wasn't my Aunt Aim's fault that she had "cleaned up on the girl who's mouth overloaded her ass". (Those were my Aunt Tam's exact words...we found out long before that you couldn't get in trouble for cussing in the principals office). Well, Aunt Aim was exonerated but the rest of us got sent home for the day so the teachers could cool off a bit, which was fine with us because we had all planned on returning home with Mom and my granddad anyway. What we didn't figure on though was the teachers that we had ticked off were also the costume judges at the Halloween Party!


Me, my brother and Dad, about the time this story took place. As you can see by our dirty shirts, "We played hard."

But it wasn't long before one of us did think of this, and we all figured we wouldn't win anything at the Party. Especially considering word got around that the teachers had made their brags that none of us would win anything at the Halloween Party. When we went home and told everyone, we were all in a huff. Then, my granddad struck on a great idea. Mind you he wasn't much of a provider, but he did know how to get things accomplished when times called for it. He came up with a plan to scare them into letting us win. His plan involved scaring, but not necessarily threatening, the principal who lived just down the mountain from us. The principal loved to ride his horses out on the road every evening around 6 O'clock, and we all knew that. Furthermore, my granddad remembered how the principal's horses were scared of his loud truck (it really was a rattletrap), so much so, that the principal had asked my Granddad a few weeks before if he would turn off the motor of his truck when he passed them along the road, so that the horses wouldn't get so frightened by the truck. But, now that all of us kids were facing some culpability for our wayward actions, all bets were off. That evening around 6 O'clock, my granddad took a drive down the road, and sure enough, there was the principal riding along on his ol' skittish mare. Seizing the opportunity, my granddad raced alongside of him, revved the engine of the old truck and that mare took off like a bullet. Granddad said she took to bucking and kicking and that the principal eventually ended up laying in the side ditch. Granddad stopped and helped him up, and said to the principal, "It'd be a real shame if my kids and grandkids don't get a fair shake at that Halloween Party next week." The principal agreed that it would be, but nothing else was said between them.

As the party neared, I had fianlly decided on a french clown costume, Mom sewed me up one out of spare cloth, and she came to school and painted my face before the judging. Oh, but the teachers gave us all some drop-dead, dirty looks, but it was obvious to everyone with a set of eyes that the Burns kids really did have the best costumes of anyone there. We overheard the teachers (judges) talking amongst themselves and several of them were still not going to allow us to win anything over what we had done the week prior to the party. Then the principal walked over to the judges, and whispered something to them. My teacher got so mad that she stormed off and refused to take part in the judging, but when the winners were announced, every last one of us Burns kids won some sort of prize!

As I recall, the prize for winning was a goodie bag and bragging rights. We all looked like cats who swallowed the proverbial canary when we lined up for photographs. Soon after being announced winners, Mom said it'd probably be best if we all "got out of Dodge" so we loaded up into the back of granddad's old pickup truck and made our way back up the mountain. I can still remember my granddad saying to me as we walked by the group of judges as we were leaving, "I reckon we showed them, didn't we Hackey?"

Whew! It's no wonder I was meaner than a striped-eyed snake!

The Eighth Circle of Hell

This post is vastly different than my usual posts, but I feel compelled to tell about my experiences this past weekend. This post isn't fun, homespun or quaint, this post is about a great tragedy that is currently happening in our mountains.

Photo by Matthew Burns

I have been to the Eighth Circle of Hell and have returned to tell the tale. Just as Dante’s “Inferno” detailed the conscious fraud and treachery in the Eighth Circle of Hell, those same vices could be used to describe the Eighth Circle of Hell that I visited this past weekend. In case any of you are wondering, the Eighth Circle of Hell is not a place of mythology; rather, it is located just outside of the modern-day community of Sarah Ann, West Virginia.

But one can clearly recognize the community of Sarah Ann was not always this way. It is readily apparent that it was once a nice little community full of people who cared about each other and the land. It is also a historical location, as it was home of the Hatfield Family of Hatfield-McCoy Feud fame. The patriarch of the Hatfield family, Devil Anse Hatfield, is buried in the family cemetery nearby. But decades of fraud and treachery by a roughshod coal industry has laid Sarah Ann low. Sarah Ann is a prime example of the lost potential of a people and community that must forever remain a black eye upon the coal industry as a reminder of its inherent deceptiveness!


Photo by Denny Tyler.

As my wife and I were driving down Route 44 through Logan County on our way to Iaeger in McDowell County, I witnessed poverty like I had never before seen. Everywhere there were remnants of a once thriving economy that had long since vanished. Crumbing homes with broken windows, horrible roads crisscrossed by abandoned rail lines, and countless boarded up stores and businesses. I couldn’t help but notice the irony. Around every bend in the road there was another coal facility, just bulging with the wealth of the mountains. How could this be? How could there be so much obvious wealth in one place with so very little of that wealth benefitting the very location from which it was being exploited? Then, I looked up on the ridgelines and mountaintops that surrounded the roadway, and I saw the problem…mountaintop removal.

Photo by Denny Tyler

While the mines that pervade the area are producing as much coal as ever, these mines no longer require manpower to extract the coal. Though the current stock prices of coal companies indicate that the industry is booming (despite what we hear on the news), it is in fact, a jobless coal boom. Only the coal companies are making any money off of the coal these days, and the people of the coalfields are once again left out in the cold. The people of the southern coalfields are not the types to just sit around and wait for a hand-out, and on our trip you could tell that the people we encountered were hardworking people who have simply fell on hard times. But with only ONE option for employment, where do these people go when that option is no longer available?

Photo by Denny Tyler

The “lucky” few who do manage to find a job on these large equipment intensive mine sites are still faced with the no-win situation of destroying their communities in order to work there. Just as was the case 100 years ago, when the UMW was trying to organize coalfield workers, coal was not then, nor is it now, a friend to southern WV! Whenever I see a bumper sticker that reads, “Friends of Coal,” I want to ask the person driving the vehicle, “Do you by any chance remember Cabin Creek? Paint Creek? Matewan? Blair Mountain?” Now, I don’t know about you, but I tend to reserve my friendship for people who deserve it, and I typically don’t befriend inanimate minerals. I can’t help but wonder if the whole Friends of Coal campaign is merely a means of mass communication among the ignorant? Obviously the people who carry this message are ignorant of their history, their heritage and their future!

Photo by Denny Tyler

However, like many who are opposed to MTR, I am not diametrically opposed to coal mining. In fact, I realize that it is a fact of life in the monoeconomies of the central Appalachian coalfields and that, in fact, it would be immoral to stop all coal mining in central Appalachia. Still, I will say it just makes good sense to obtain the coal from underground and not by mountaintop removal methods. There is a readily available workforce just waiting to again be employed by the coal industry. If Coal really is good for West Virginia, as the industry and the bought-politicans readily tout, then the mining of coal should be conducted in such a way as to maximize the employment of West Virginians. Only in this manner will coal revenue truly increase the tax base and improve the standard of living for the average West Virginian.

Photo by Denny Tyler

You might ask, “But what can be done?” “Is it fair to judge the situation at face value?” Is it fair to say, “If you don’t like it, then leave” as so many coal industry advocates spout? I ask you this, why should someone have to leave their ancestral home simply so that someone else can draw a paycheck from its destruction? Only in central Appalachia can the victim be made out to be the villain! Why should corporate interests be given superiority over the value of human life and individual property rights? I recently heard someone say, “We don’t live where you mine coal, you mine coal where we live. We were here first.” That statement is so very true. A real mountaineer will recognize the problem and fight to make it better instead of cutting and running, like the perpetrators of MTR do.

Photo by Denny Tyler

The majority of problems currently associated with mountaintop removal are clearly human rights issues, as it is chock full of violations on that front. So why do so many see mountaintop removal only as an environmental problem? Is it because it is hard to paint human rights violations when they primarily involve poor, white families, or is it simply because it is easier to villainize “environmental extremists”? If it is the former, that white people are not poor, or cannot be discriminated against, then I invite you to visit the southern West Virginia communities that I visited this weekend. You see, the social justice issues in the coalfields are not racially motivated, but rather, they are based on simple economics. We’re poor, so we don’t matter. Yes, class warfare is alive and well in the central Appalachian coalfields.

But all is not hopeless, I did see a few glimmers of hope on my trip through the coalfields. For example, in Gilbert, West Virginia, I saw a few brave citizens trying their best to break the stranglehold of the monoeconomy perpetrated by the coal industry by taking up the banner of tourism. These people were trying their best to cater to the influx of visitors to the Hatfield/McCoy Trail. In spite of all the efforts there, I see one big catch-22, a community cannot have a tourism industry when mountaintop removal is destroying the very thing these people are coming to visit…the mountains. Now I know the claims, that the Hatfield/McCoy trail is partially built on old strip mines and without the coal industry leaving this abandoned mine land to the state, the trail system would not be possible. That is a faulty argument and is the equivalent of saying that Coca-Cola wouldn’t exist without obese people to drink it! There is already more than enough abandoned strip mines in southern West Virginia to have 100 Hatfield/McCoy trails.

After my visit to the coalfields, the bottom line of the matter is the residents of these communities desperately need roads, and they need them yesterday. I know we’ve all heard the line from, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” where George Clooney comments that the little town he was in was a geographical oddity because it was 2 weeks from anywhere. Well, many of these little communities share that geographical oddity because they are 2 hours from anywhere. A successful community has a solid infrastructure. Good roads are the cornerstone of this infrastructure. For businesses to excel, there must be a good tranpsortation system. While these tourism entrepreneurs in Gilbert are laying the foundations and hedging their bets that a new day is dawning in the coalfields, it is up to the rest of us to demand that funds be allocated to advancing the economic conditions of the coalfields. Without good roads and the economic diversification that comes with them, these citizens of the southern West Virginia coalfields will remain virtual slaves and a captive workforce for the coal industry that continues to use fewer and fewer workers.

Photo by Denny Tyler

But don’t be mistaken. These are not a broken people, and to realize this one but has to look into the eyes of the children. For too long, these areas have remained forgotten and the people written off as lost causes. The children tell a different story. These kids truly are the hope of the future, but they must be encouraged when they are young. The inquisitiveness and intelligence of these children rival any in the nation, but without nurturing these hopes will die. There is a stark difference between the hopes and dreams of children in the coalfields and the twenty-somethings that remain in this area. I have seen this firsthand, and it made me wonder what went on in that space of time to completely eradicate that optimism? Could it be the 130+ years of oppression wrought by the coal industry? Continually being told (and shown) that you and your land are good for nothing except coal mining, and then being told that you need to keep your mouth shut if your opinions differ from those of the coal industry, has to take its toll on any human psyche. For far too long, the people of the central Appalachian coalfields have been America’s forgotten people. It is shameful that the very people who have sacrificed the most (and continue to sacrifice) for the prosperity of the United States, have received so very little.

Still, the seeds of oppression have sprouted into the flower of discontent, and the southern West Virginia coalfields now finds itself at a crossroads. No longer will it depend on a one resource economy. No longer will it rely on corporate politicians. No longer will its citizens sit idly by and watch their heritage be destroyed for the benefit of some faraway place. No longer will we accept being second-class citizens. Standing with us at this crossroads are the spirits of mountaineers long since passed; from Simon Kenton and Daniel Boone; to Michael Stoner and Mitchell Clay; from Devil Anse and Smilin’ Sid Hatfield; to Mother Jones and Governor William C. Marland. Their presence strengthens and unites us, and they root us in the knowledge that we are as much a part of this rugged land as the coal that is being ripped from the mountaintops.

Photo by Denny Tyler

Let’s stand together on this issue of economic diversification in the coalfields and demand better of our elected officials. No matter where you are from, contact your elected officials by email or letter, better yet call them and tell them your mind! If they continue to refuse to address this grave injustice, then I ask you to join me in actively campaigning against them (regardless of political party) in the next election. The coalfields are at a critical point in its history, and a changing of the guard may be just what is needed to save the coalfields from the coal industry.

Photo by Vivian Stockman

Come Visit October

"October" by West Virginia poet, Grace Yoke White, from her 1953 book "Unhoarded Gold".

What does it matter if my house is not swept,
Or my beds placed to air in a hygenic way?
For in through my window a birdcall crept,
And a red-throated songster hopped near to say:

"Come, share the joy of the fine autumn weather;
The goldenrod gleams near bypaths and roadways;
While tall, flaming asters, like purple heather,
Keep time as they nod at the birds through the day."

Come stand 'neath the trees, let the leaves drift around you--
The red and the brown, the crimson and gold;
Come, roam out of doors, in the sun and the dew;
Come, forget that time passes, that days will grow cold.

Come out in the sun and the soft autumn moon;
Let's enjoy the bright days and nights as they pass;
Come, gather the beauties that fade all too soon;
Come out in the open while the season lasts.

Granddaddy in the Timber Camps

In the 2nd row (just to the right of the tear) is my great-great grandfather, Charley Burns, who worked the timber camps around the turn of the century.

I grew up hearing about the timber camps ever since I could remember. I heard stories about my Granddaddy Don, who filed saws in the timber camps. I heard stories about Don's father, Charley Burns, who worked in the early timber camps of the region. I heard stories about my Aunt Mid who worked as a cook in the timber camps out in Bemis, WV. So, as you can see, I have heard alot of stories about the timber camps that were set up when the vast forests of the Potomac Highlands were cut.

In the early logging days there were quite a few men who wandered from timber camp to timber camp looking for work. Some of these camps were several miles apart so these men, having no other family or home, would stop at various homesteads between the camps. None were never turned away and they were all given a meal to eat and a place to sleep, but the faces that kept turning up on a regular basis were figured out to be men who weren't necessarily looking for work in the timber camps, but rather just trying to get by without having to go to the camps. You see, up until the time that the timber barons came in and set up these camps, there was no such thing as wage labor in these mountains. People would just barter for goods and services, and they would sell surplus farm goods or animal hides for cash. Hired hands were paid with a place to live and food to eat, so wage labor was an entirely foreign concept for some of these men. That isn't to say they were lazy, not at all, it is just they were brought up in a society where people worked until a job was done, and not when someone in authority told them when to begin work and when to lay off work. Before the coming of the timber camps, these men worked jobs that the seasons and weather necessitated! In addition, many of these men didn't take well to instruction and orders either, but after the timber companies came in and bought up so much of the land, a large contingent of these folks were left without a home, work and a means of support. That is why some of these men would walk the countryside, pitching in here and there and doing whatever needed done in order to stay out of the timber camps.

My granddaddy Burns would talk about how rough these men were in the timber camps, and how dirty some of them would become. Granddaddy told that it was expected of men to bathe only one day a week, and that was after work on Saturday (bathing more frequently than that would reportedly make you sick). Granddaddy said they worked six days a week and 10 hours a day, so you can begin to imagine the smell. Granddaddy said that the bunkhouses where these men lived would make a mans eyes water whenever you would walk in the door.

Granddaddy said there was always laughter and some running jokes going on in the timber camps. He told that one of the best tricks some of the older wood hicks would pull on the new boys just coming into the camps was to pull the humongous gray lice out of their beards and hold them between their fingers and talk to the lice like they were a favorite dog. They'd pet the louse, and talk to the louse, and then reach it out to the "green" boy like they expected him to pet and talk to the louse too! When inevitably the newcomers would shy away from the huge louse, the old wood hick would stick it back in his beards and tell the louse to "not pay any mind to people who didn't know any better." Granddaddy said they pulled that trick every year and it never did get old!

Speaking of the big gray body lice that were common in the timber camps, Granddaddy told of how some of the men would put a big louse under the glass face of their pocket watch just for the novelty of it, and they would keep the louse that like for months. It was a thing of pride to have the biggest louse!

Granddaddy Don said the roughest place that he ever worked was in Davis, WV, for the West Virginia Pulp & Paper Company. Granddaddy would tell us that "the fastest way to get to Hell was to go through Davis." He said the men there would just as soon shoot or stab you as to look at you, and the management of the company didn't try to stop the violence because having the workforce constantly in a state of fear kept down wages. Granddaddy said that one time a bunch of them were playing cards while riding the train from Davis to Dry Fork, and that a man who was known to be unruly was playing with them. Granddaddy told us that the game was going fine until the man started losing, and he said to everyone playing in the game that "the next damn man who wins a hand against me is going to bust Hell wide open before they get a dime out of me." Well, the men didn't pay much mind to him because after all, it was a card game with timber men so you kind of expected rudeness and rough talk. It just so happened that Granddaddy Don won the next hand of cards and as he started reaching for the winnings, he saw the man going for the pistol that he had tucked in the belt that held up his britches. Granddaddy said he never was so scared in his life but he done the only thing he could do, he jumped off the train! He said the fall just about killed him because he landed in some cut down tree-tops about 4 miles outside of Dry Fork. Scraped and bruised pretty bad but luckily with no broken bones, Granddaddy walked alongside the tracks into Jenningston on the Dry Fork line where he got on the train headed back to Davis. But he learned his lesson, he never again played cards with that man.

Granddaddy worked in the WV timber camps until the timber was cut out, and then he started his own small timber company and hired some of his friends to work for him. They cut timber for a few years on the old Fredericksburg battlefield in Fredericksburg, Virginia, but Granddaddy lived longer than the timber boom so he went out of business in the early 1940's. He then decided to go to Baltimore, MD, like so many other men who had worked the timber camps of the Potomac Highlands, and he found work in the Glenn L. Martin airplane factory, which was booming because of the War Effort. Granddaddy worked there until he retired in the early 1960's, at which time he returned back home to the old Burns homeplace on North Mountain, where he lived out the rest of his days.