Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia

The Last Unmined Vein

May she be in God's Glory and waiting for me Your Daddy is fine 300 LISTEN HERE and working sun up to down and quite happy doing so His little church is not setting the world on fire but then he had no mind for it to I suppose 25 or 30 counting children come for Sunday morning and then about Y2 that at night And he preaches just like it were a whole tent full and he was Billy Graham Well I am at the beauty shop and my hair is about dry So I will close This finds me well and happy and missing you Count the mistakes as love THE LAST UNMINED VEIN from The Last Unmined Vein (1980) Now it's neither here nor there to most folks but then I've never figured myself to be like many much less most I know what they do no matter what they say I know how they come with trucks bigger than ary road can hold and drive her through yer yard and right up on the porch and park her next to yer rocking chair and you ain't got a howdy-do to say about it neither once you put yer name to that paper that's it Now my daddy and me we used to dig a little coal LEE HOWARD 301 out of that vein across the bottom Just a pick and shovel and what could be wheelbarrowed out of there was all that was took and didn't hurt nothing and kept a fire real good and that's it but that ain't what they got in mind They wanting to make steel in Ohio, turn on the lights in New York City and heat houses in Detroit Shoot-I don't know a soul in the whole state of Michigan but that ain't really it It ain't my business what they do with it but this farm and everything that's in it is plenty my concern and I know how they come with their mouths full of promises and leaving with everyone ofyour fields full of ruts and the mud sliding down the hillside right onto your back steps and there ain't a creek left what would hold a living thing and that's it and the money just don't mean that much to me I done seen all I need to see about where that money goes and what's got with it Last thing this county needs is another new mobile home with a four-wheel drive truck 302 LISTEN HERE parked on a mudbank in front of it and that's it and not another thing to show for where and what your mammy and pappy and their mammy and pappy not to mention your own self and family always had So when that man in his new suit and smooth as silk talking came to my door I didn't even ask him in Said I wasn't interested He laughed and said he wasn't selling Said I didn't figure I was either and that was it Of course, I know he'll be back but probably after I'm dead and gone and if the children want to be so foolish as to put an end to what came long before them ain't nothing I can do about it then but I been laying plans to remind them ofwhat it's gonna cost them I done got my marker and laid out the lines for my grave right smack in the middle of that vein They gonna have to chip out the coal 6 foot by 6 and then put her right back on top of me and that will be the end of that ...