I'm the first male in my family for generations that Never worked in a coal mine. My dad worked there only before college and his service in Korea. Both grandfathers worked in the mines of So. Illinois in their teens. They had to farm and run sideline businesses as well to make ends meet. In my late teens I wanted to work in the mines because the money was so good. My Grandpa told me, "We didn't work so hard so that our Grandson would have to work in the mines too." He was injured in his early 60s when he went back to work to build up his miner's pension. The compressed air used to blast the face wne toff unexpectedly and pelted his body with coal and dust. In 1984 we I recorded with pride a song of the coal miners' plight: Coal Town Road

We get up in the black Down the coal town road And we hike along the track Where the coal trains load And we make the ponies pull till they nearly break their backs And they'll never see again Down the coal town road

We hear the whistle blow Down the coal town road And we take our tools and all Down the coal town road In the cages we will drop till there's no where else to fall And we leave this world behind us Down the coal town road

We never see the sun Down the coal town road At a penny for a ton Where the coal trains load When our shift comes up on top We're so thankful to be done We head home to sleep and dream about The coal town road

There's miner's little sons Down the coal town road Playing with their carbide guns Where the coal trains load But they better make the best of their childhool while it runs There's a pick and shovel waiting Down the coal town road

If there's a God for us Down the coal town road All the miners he can bless Where the coal trains load For we're sweating in the hole sucking down the devil's dust Just to keep the fires blazing Down the coal town road