25140

A moment in silent reflection for those suffering through the mine disasters in both West Virgina and China.

Amen.

My grandfather was a coal miner.  He came over from Ireland with his parents waaay back when.  They ended up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. James Joseph Murray, couldn’t get any more Irish than he and his!
Anyway, he made it through the third grade then had to leave school to work in the mines….imagine that.
Imagine being a kid going deep down inside the earth with a pick-axe, a miner’s cap and your lunch pail…working long, hard days back before breathing filters and safety regulations…Oh yeah! this was before Child Labor Laws kicked in, too. We kids don’t know how lucky we’ve had it! 
 
Even though Grandpa only had that 3rd grade education, he went from working in the mines to a job at General Electric….moved his family from the “hills” to Philadelphia, where my mother met my dad.

Compared to the mine disaster and my grandfather’s hard life, I got nothin’ to complain about…..BUT!  (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?)

Spent the better part of yesterday first frantically trying to find our completed, ready for final post production (adding the sound) video. It was just, suddenly…gone.
Just gone…somewhere lost in the maze of hard drive land-or worse!  So, then began the process of resigning myself to starting all over again. Oy.  That’s okay….(sound of whimpering and licking of wounds)….the next one will be better. (sniffle!) And besides, I’ve learned a  lot in the process (sniff, sniff).
Onward to the next.

Thoughts go back to West Virginia….folks, we need to re-examine what we’re doing….is coal really the only way? I know, I know…it’s what we have, it’s what we’re used to…and besides, what about that carbon sequestering thing?  Great! Storing poison, living with garbage…not to mention leaving it around for our offspring to deal with.

Surely, we can think of some other way!

So for today, Fifty Five is the new25140…zip code of Montcoal, West Virginia….for the friends and families of those who died…for those who suffered in the mine, and for a glimmer of hope.  If we learn nothing else from our difficulties, let it be that no matter what- there’s always hope.