copied from another thread... I thought it looked like it belonged here.... sorry if it wasn't what you inteneded Susan.

slainte

alison -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: RE: Mudcat Marrage Guidance From: Susan A-R Date: 19-Mar-99 - 10:52 PM

I worked at the Council of the Southern Mountains in Clintwood VA in the winter of '81/'82. It was a remarkable introduction to "the real world" it being my first job after college. The work was intense and terrifying in many ways. There were several mining disasters while I was there, and we covered them, tried to provide support to widows, etc. It was as the bottom was going out of mine safety regulation. I was the only person on staff who didn't carry a gun (even if I weren't legally blind, I wouldn't do that.) I got introduced to a lot of causes that are still near and dear to me, I learned a lot about writing under deadline, and even learned how to do layout the old fashioned way, and loved it when we'd go to the press up in Pikefille to pull "Mountain Life&Work off the conveyer belt. I heard Ralf Stanley and the Clinch Mountain boys. I spent an afternoon in a senior center playing music with Guy Carawan, I left the council and spent a month in Hinton West Virginia in the home of Jim Costa (along with about five guitars, " fiddles, several lap dulcimers, a few odd instruments for which I don't know the names, an autoharp and, yes, two ripped apart player pianoos. We went to kitchen sessions and music parties all over southern West Virginia. I had left CSM after too much death (56 miners in two months) and too much learning in too little time, and Jim's was a good place to decompress. I had not been playing the fiddle when I moved down to VA, but I am still playing it now, and still love some of the songs and tunes I learned down there. Wow! guess you uncorked something.

Susan