-
Strip Mining Comes to Big Creek
- Appalachian Heritage
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Volume 34, Number 4, Fall 2006
- pp. 67-73
- 10.1353/aph.2006.0102
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Strip Mining Comes to Big Creek Truman Fields On a bright, sunny day in late October 1947, several big red and black trucks passed our school, just before morning recess. They were headed up Perry County's Big Creek, where most of us lived. We had seen big trucks before on our little dirt road, but never three just alike, all in a row. We were familiar with log trucks and a few coal trucks, even knew most of the drivers. These three oversized Mack trucks had writing on their doors, but they were too far away to read it. Minutes after the trucks went by, a large, strange-looking machine crawled its way up our small road. It also was painted red and black with larger letters inscribed on its side. Then several other machines unfamiliar to us followed. We had seen road graders and small bulldozers before. These were nothing like that. The same yellow and white letters were neatly painted on every piece of equipment. When we were "let out" for morning recess, we all raced down the road to watch this beautiful, long parade. It had at least twenty rolling pieces. There were several company men walking along with the slowmoving equipment. They all talked to us and were real friendly. They had a strange accent, and we figured that they must not have been from around here. They were courteous, even though they sounded like Yankees. One of the men had to gently hold Seymour Shackford, an overanxious seventh-grader, back when he tried to get too close. Some of the machinery in the diesel parade was so large that the drivers were afraid to cross the wooden bridge near the school. That proved no problem. A large bulldozer pushed dirt and rock out of the way, and the equipment was directed through the shallow creek bed. Every single piece had "B. Lavelle and Sons" neatly written on its side with "Strip Mining Equipment" scribed in just below. The lowercase lettering was just a little smaller than the name of the company. Every word was perfectly written in bold letters, and all the equipment looked new or nearly new. The entire moving show was more than impressive. Mr. Oliver seemed very upset with this long, slow, steel caravan. He had come down to the road like us and gotten a close look; he then walked quickly back to school and rang the bell harder and more times thanusual. Recessseemedtobe cutshort,butwefiguredthattheteacher 67 thought we were unsafe or were enjoying ourselves too much. When we all took our seats, he was looking down at the floor and pacing back and forth by the blackboard. Something was gnawing at our teacher. It looked as if he couldn't speak. He kept on pacing, his arms slightly extended. His fists were clenched as he looked only at the floor. It was easy to hear him breathe. We had never seen the teacher lose his cool. We remembered his calmness through the Boomer bruiser event the first week of school, when Boomer had tried to challenge the new teacher. He wasn't cool this time, though. There was a reason for that noisy bell calling us from recess. The teacher had a sheet of sadness baked with anger on his face. We were collectively surprised to see this side of Mr. Oliver. He was nearly out of control when he finally spoke. "That is strip-mining equipment," he said. "It is here to tear up and ruin the very earth we live on. It has come to our hills to rip this land apart and take our coal." That didn't appear to me to be too bad, because there were plenty of hills, and coal was abundant everywhere. To lose some of each looked harmless enough. Besides, there would most likely be badly needed employment for several men in our neighborhood. I wondered how the machinery could upset someone so much. We had enjoyed the big show, and we were a little upset that recess had been shortened. Back in the mountains, a kid didn't often see something so big and so different. Everybody loves a parade...