Old Mining Days Dream

As Great-grandfather (Pap-Pap) led me into tunnels of the Pennsylvania mine he used to live in, we laughed together as we descended metal staircases, as hard-rock miners who worked there did not know the secret shortcut around each edge. He had a sporting laugh, as he agilely turned his great baldhead to glance back at me at each turn. We came to a room lit by fire where I found four leases, written in old time scribing style and all about the size of the United States Constitution.

Speculation was such that Pap-Pap remained living in the mine, to keep an eye on things so that the owners would see fit to actually paying him his paltry mineral rights.

I took the fourth (and most recent) lease in my hands and it appeared to be a buyout.

The mine flooded and was no longer habitable. Dad and I speculated that Pap-Pap might still want to live there, but it was high time and the only time that we would be able to get him to move out of this dark hole.

The leases were signed in rare earth ink: Sinclair or Holding –the last one had a stamped consignee of Fishel Company “The world’s greatest ditch-diggers” a place where I had worn a hard-hat at while slaving away back in the mid –eighties.

End of dream

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

Some reality notes: The last time I remember seeing Pap-Pap in this world was in Pennsylvania in the summer of 1970. He was 90 and I was 10. He greeted me with an enthusiastic handshake, while we smiled at the front door of my Grandfathers (his son’s) house. As we shook hands, I gained a lasting impression that he was a sharp guy with a strong handshake for a man of 90. He and I also found joy in seeing that I was nearly as tall as he was. Our heights might intersect any day. My kinfolk tell me that he worked as a Chemist for Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. He had to retire a few years early due to the chemicals he worked in close proximity with affecting his brain. I did not see any anomalies in Pap-Pap at the time and only remember him as a likeable man. As far as I know, he never actually worked in a mine. He could have though. The area had abundant coalmines when he was a young man -ninety to a hundred years ago.