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Winding Through Coal Country
The only radio station I could find had played “Okie from Muskogee” four times and “Coal Miner’s Daughter” three times when I began to wonder: Had the DJ fallen asleep? One can only listen to so much Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton.
The rolling green mountains of West Virginia’s coal country are beautiful. They also block radio reception, leaving you with few listening options. I prod the scan button in search of another station. I find one. A man is instructing about the Devil and his wily ways. I can almost feel the spittle springing forth from the speaker as he thwacks the Bible on the podium. I press the scan button again. I listen to a pre-recorded town hall meeting about the future of the coal industry.
I turn the radio off. I am alone. To pass the time, I play state license plate bingo with myself. The sun is slipping below the horizon line. The orange-and-yellow dappled mountains assume a firey shade of red. Mist rises from the nooks and crannies, snaking its way through the mountains. Half an hour passes. The game fizzles. I have located only West Virginia plates, and most of these on eighteen-wheeled rigs, piled high with tree trunks.
For the third time today, I see “Stop Safely Now” along the side of the road. I pull into a nearby parking lot. Some of the men and women carry signs: “Stop the War on Coal: Save Our Jobs.” Others sit on lawn chairs, snack in laps.
A mountain towers in the background, its top hacked off as if by some invisible, gargantuan hand. In the fog, the protestors resemble ghosts, haunting that hardscrabble space between America’s industrial past and its technological future. I pick up my phone to dial the auto club. I can’t get a signal.
