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44 the county highway The county highway used to cross under the wooden tipple of the No. 5 Boyd Mine, hugging the curve of the river. On one side was the steep face of the hill; on the other, the slag pile that spilled down the embankment into the sulfur-colored water. One winter evening in 1929 my father rolled his car here, leaving me his pocket watch and a trail of fading photographs . The tipple and outbuildings are gone now. The scarred hillside has healed, the slag pile grown over with weeds, the shack where the old black man waved to every passing car has fallen in on itself. I stand above the river, which runs clear these days, looking at a landscape that needs words. ...

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