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Central Pennsylvania Writers' Organization *** Founded in 1985 to support and encourage writers of all genres*** Providing fellowship and inspiration to central Pennsylvania writers for 25 years. |
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Officers: President -
Rich Barley Public Relations - Diane Appelt
Writing
makes a map, and there is something about a journey that begs
to have its passage marked.
Web Mistress:
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Our June meeting was highlighted by guest speaker Don Helin, author of thrillers, including his latest book Thy Kingdom Come. An active member of the International Thriller Writers and Pennwriters, Don addressed CPWO members regarding how to get published, and finding the answers to writers' questions about their goals as authors. A
native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he graduated from the
University of Minnesota, Don entered the U.S.
Army and served in posts across the United States, and
overseas in Vietnam and Germany. After a career in the
military, Don spent a number of years in Washington D.C. as a
lobbyist for industry, which provided him with additional material for thrillers. Don used his experience in the Pentagon to create the character, Colonel Sam Thorpe. In the fictionalized world of Thy Kingdom Come, Sam served twenty-five years in the Army, and is the last of six members of a Pentagon special elite anti-terrorist task force. Learn more about Don Helin and his work at http://http://www.donhelin.com/home.html.
CPWO Presents the Winners of Our 2009 Writing Contest Our publication of the winning writers' works is intended to celebrate and encourage writers of all genres to keep reaching for their intended audience with a voice that is truly their own. Stacy Wolfe's winning short story Devil's Work, and Dave Patton's winning non-fiction memoir A Summer Underground appear below. |
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Our 2009 Fiction Contest Winning Entry
Devil’s Work by Stacy Wolfe The content of the following material is subject to copyright laws and restrictions. No part of it may be reproduced without the written permission of the author. © 2009 Stacy Wolfe
A cold chill ran down her spine and traveled throughout her tired body, she wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold winter air or just her. Christy sat on a snow covered bench and looked up into the dark sky. There were no stars out tonight, glittery white snow fell instead and landed on her warm cheeks. The icy water melted as soon as it touched her face. The snowflakes were like her in a way, they fell and were enjoyed for a moment or two, but they eventually faded away and were forgotten. She too would fall into the lives of a few people but never made a lasting impression. She would disappear as quickly as she had appeared, there were a few times when she overstayed her welcome and ended up getting hurt. She was pretty, but not overly so. She was troubled but not to the point of insanity. She just couldn’t find a place to fit, so it was time for her to go home. All she carried with her was a little black leather book bag, it was filled with little memories and stuffed with the baggage she tried desperately to leave behind. But some things were hard to forget, and some things just couldn’t be forgiven. It’s funny in a way, how she would think back and remember the hopes and dreams she had been filled with as a little girl. How the prayers of becoming something special had filled her little head with such happiness, but they were left unanswered. She just couldn’t catch a break. It’s even funnier how her mother would press those hopeful dreams even farther by telling her that she could become anything her little heart desires. And as she giggled in delight at the thought of becoming a dancer or an artist or even a doctor her father just sat back and watched his little girl become exactly what she had been from the beginning…nothing. If only her mother would have kept the sugar coating off of her little yellow brick road and been honest with her. She should have filled that yellow brick road with walls and muck, she should have told her that most people never achieve their most hopeful ambitions. She could have told her that most lives become shattered as reality comes crashing down. Christy knew that if she would have had a little girl she would have told her the truth right from the start. She would have told her to never wish too big, if you have too many expectations in your life you fall harder when the end comes before you are ready. It would have been easier to have been warned then to fall flat on your face just in front of the red carpet. But she would never get that chance, she terminated even the slightest thought of bringing a child into this messy world with so many ugly people. She wasn’t quite sure when her life turned for the worse. She came from a good family, her mother and father both loved her, but her father was hard on her. He never praised her when she did do something good and he never helped her much with her schoolwork. He had been slightly honest with her when he told her to not expect too much from life, the future wasn’t near as promising as most people thought. Now that she thought about it she realized that he too had been disappointed in his life. He had never been rewarded for a job well done, he worked hard and when things started to fail at his jobs he was one of the first to be let go. He was the total opposite of her mother, he left Christy fall, he never helped her back up. He wanted her to do things for herself, you win on your own and you fail alone. And she sure had done that many times, she’d been in counseling for the past six years and it had done nothing for her. Things just kept going from bad to worse and now she was just tired. Dr. Craig Daniels was her counselor and he promised to help her through her rough times. She told him she had failed out of college and that she had experimented with the drug scene and she had no steady job. Worst of all she had no one, she had left her family behind and she didn’t have many friends. She stayed away from home in the hopes that her father would never find out that he had been right about her all along. But the very doctor who had promised to help her got her into the most trouble of all. She of course was partly to blame, she had and affair with him and ended up getting pregnant. When she told him about the baby he wasn’t happy, he reminded her that he was a married man and because of this he may lose his job. He was not to have relationships with any of his patients outside of his office, especially a sexual one. She had been totally crushed, he hadn’t even offered any help and gave her no options, she was left on her own. She walked out of his office and straight to an abortion clinic, she spent what little money she had on the only thing she thought would be right. She wasn’t stable enough to bring a baby into her world. At least that’s what she thought at the time, but now she was having her doubts. Maybe what she had done was wrong, she could have given the baby to someone who could offer more. Christy again looked up into the dark sky and left the cold snowflakes hit her cheeks to cover the tears she had begun to shed. So she was going home, but not to confront her demons or even to ask for forgiveness. She was going home to end her sorrow, her road was coming to an end and her journey was over. She was tired and she didn’t want to go on anymore, she had made her bed and now it was time to sleep in it. Forever. She composed herself quickly and sat up in her seat when she saw headlights coming toward her, maybe it was finally her bus. It was late. She leaned back into the bench and crossed her arms over her chest, it was only a truck. The truck slowed as it approached the bus stop, and came to a complete stop in front of her. She watched as the window rolled down. A young man, maybe in his late twenties, a little older then herself appeared in the window with a smile. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” Christy shook her head. “No. I’m waiting for the bus.” His smile brightened. “Well, it’s awful cold out tonight and the buses are running behind because of all the snow. The roads are slick so there’s no saying if the bus will even show up.” She stared at him, not quite sure what to make of him. “I could save you a few bucks, besides, I could use the company.” She looked at him even more closely. He seemed friendly enough, harmless in a way. He was clean cut, he looked like he meant no harm, he was just trying to be helpful. He was right anyway, he could save her the little money she carried with her and he could probably use the company. She stood up and smiled. “Well, if it wouldn’t be any trouble.” “No, no trouble at all. It gets lonely on the road.” He smiled even bigger and opened the door for her. She climbed up into the cab and sat down. She was grateful for the warmth, “thank you.” He waited until she buckled herself in then pulled away. “The name’s Tom.” She looked at him before she responded, again studying him. She felt comfortable enough because she gave him her real name. “Where are you headed Christy?” He looked at her closely this time. “Pennsylvania. But if you’re not going that far that’s fine.” She looked down at his hands, he was wearing a wedding band. She took a deep breath and relaxed back into the seat, that somewhat relieved her even more. She wasn’t looking for anything but a ride home. “Actually that’s great, my load is taking me there also.” He smiled over at her. “It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it Christy?” She smiled too, but it was barely noticeable. He tried to talk to her for a while and he spoke of his wife and two little girls. She didn’t say much, she kept herself somewhat of a mystery. She didn’t want to get to comfortable, she promised herself she wouldn’t let anyone else in. Not after Craig, she trusted him and he broke her heart. She vowed to never trust anyone with her secrets again. Besides, she didn’t confide in any of the few friends she had, so she wasn’t about to start with a complete stranger. He looked over and smiled at her again. “You know, it was only a couple of years ago I had my life pretty messed up. I was into drugs and alcohol, I wasn’t married and I was about to start a family I wasn’t sure I even wanted. I didn’t even have a real job. I tried to kill myself. I almost succeeded too, but some old man found me. I woke up in the hospital. And you know, that old man helped me turn my life around. He gave me a job on his farm and helped me through trucking school. He saved my life, he brought me back, and because of him I’m a better person. I make sure at least once a week I make the world a better place for someone.” She stared at him, it was like he knew her innermost secrets. It was like he was reading her mind, and that scared her. “How do you make the world a better place?” He smiled to himself this time, he had struck a nerve, that was obvious. He had her attention. “Nothing special, I just offer what I can, and this week I offered a young girl down on her luck a way home.” That sounded a bit odd, how could offering a ride make the world a better place? She looked away from him and stared out the window. “Are you alright? You seem bothered, maybe I should stop talking now.” “No, it’s alright. I’m just tired.” She turned her whole body away from him toward the window. “Well you go ahead and close your eyes for a while and rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.” He focused his eyes back on the road, it was a long ride. Christy tried real hard not to fall asleep, but did anyway. When she woke up she knew immediately that she’d been out for a while, the sky was starting to get lighter. The truck was stopped and Tom was not in the driver’s seat. She looked around but couldn’t tell how far they had traveled. She could see that they were at a truck stop and in the distance she saw a convenience store. She was about to climb out of the cab when she saw Tom walking toward the truck with two cups of coffee. He hopped back up into the cab. His lips were pressed together in a thin smile, not like he normally smiled. “Well look who woke up.” “I’m sorry, was I out long?” “Couple of hours.” He handed her one of the coffees. She accepted it with a smile. “Thank you.” “No problem, drink up.” He started the truck and they headed back onto the snow covered highway. They drove in silence this time, neither of them having much to say, both lost in their own thoughts. She drank her coffee, it was warm and it felt good going down into her empty stomach. “You know, if you need a rest we could stop. I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs a little.” She was looking right at him but she couldn’t focus on his facial features. She couldn’t make out any distinct patterns on him, or on anything else. His face was blurred and distorted, she shifted in her seat uncomfortably and her heart raced. Something was wrong. He leaned over to her, almost into her. “Are you alright Christy?” His smile was now unpleasant and distorted, one side seemed to be higher then the other. He looked evil to her and he was scaring her with his frequent glances, his voice sounded so far away. “I’m feeling a little nauseous, maybe we should stop for a few minutes. I need some air, I can’t breath right.” He shook his head, he was different now. He wasn’t friendly and he didn’t seem to be bothered that she didn’t feel well. “No. No you’re supposed to feel that way. Just close your eyes and the pain will go away. You’ll wake up when it’s all over.” She gasped for air as she reached for the door handle, but she couldn’t seem to find it. She turned to look at him, he was ugly and his twisted features seemed to encircle her. “What do you mean I’ll wake up when it’s over? When what’s over? What did you do to me?” He started to laugh and it sent a chill straight through her body. The evil cackling was the last thing she remembered. She fell back into the seat and passed out. When she woke up this time it was dark out, she couldn’t see anything, not even headlights. The truck was still moving, she could feel that. She tried to turn her head to look around but found that she couldn’t move at all. Where the hell was she? She pressed her eyes shut and reopened them quickly to try to focus on something, anything. But the only thing she saw was darkness, and it swallowed her. Her eyes darted from one black spot to another until she finally saw a thin strip of light in the center of her obscured world. She held her breath when she realized she was in the back of his cab, in the sleeping quarters. She tried to sit up quickly but found that she still couldn’t move, she muttered a cuss word but only a dry gasp escaped her. She was gagged, her arms and neck were tied down. Her heart raced through her chest. She tried to sit up again but the thin tie around her neck was too tight and she cut off her air supply instead. She started to cough. She felt cold and vulnerable. She squeezed her eyes closed as she realized she was naked, she had been violated. Tom had raped her while she’d been sleeping, she knew what it felt like afterwards. She coughed again and this time nearly vomited. The light turned on and Tom poked his head around the curtain. He smiled as he looked at her. “Glad to see you awake again. Don’t try to move, I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. It will be over soon and you’ll be home.” Home? What was he talking about home? He had no intention of taking her home, he wasn’t taking her anywhere. She started to cry, she didn’t want to die. Maybe she had wanted to, but that was just her irrational thinking at the time. She could see things differently now. Suicide wasn’t her only escape, she had been through some rough times but she could get through them. Her life wasn’t that bad. She didn’t want to die, she changed her mind, she wanted to live. But now it seemed that choice had been taken away from her. Tom was going to kill her. With the light still on she looked around the cab and through her tears things were becoming clearer. There were pictures on the ceiling and on the walls. They were pictures of girls, young girls. None of them unlike herself, they were all gagged and they were all sleeping. She felt sick to her stomach, there were so many of them. She left out a shriek from the back of her throat. Tom started to laugh. “You see them?” She closed her eyes and tried desperately to think of a way out. There was no way out. “They were all like you Christy, young, stupid and desperate. They were all looking for a way out, they were confused about life. Should they go on, should they end it. What a decision to make, it would be the last one they would ever have to make if they chose to end it. So I made if for them.” She couldn’t stop the tears from falling, how did she get herself into this one. She was stupid and desperate and just like the others she had no more decisions to make. “I helped them, really, I did. I told you I make the world a better place one person at a time. I rid the world of confused, and stupid girls. You’re all trouble anyway. All those girls running from problems they can’t face. Didn’t your parents ever tell you your problems just don’t go away, you have to make them go away. It always comes down to this, you leave that up to someone else. And since no one wants to take that responsibility I take it upon myself to do it for you. I’ll rid you of your problems, and everyone else’s too.” She was sobbing through her gag when she realized the truck was slowing down. He was pulling onto a ramp and getting off the highway. “The time is coming Christy, you’re almost home.” He was tormenting her now. She tried to scream but it wouldn’t have done any good, her mouth was dry and barely a whine escaped her. She was shaking uncontrollably. “I could tell you needed me Christy.” He just wouldn’t shut up, it was as if he was justifying what he was doing. He was making it right for himself to continue, telling himself that what he was doing was right. “I want to make your life easier, so much easier.” The truck came to a stop, and without turning it off he climbed in the back and joined her. She moaned as he straddled her, she tried to turn away from him as he licked the tears from her cheeks and nose. It was obvious he was enjoying himself immensely, she could feel him growing. He pulled the gag from her mouth and kissed her lips. Then as politely as he could he asked her, “any particular way out Christy?” She stared at him and with what little breath she had she whispered, “why are you doing this?” He laughed at her, then grew angry. “I didn’t want to come back, I chose to end my life and someone took that away from me. Now it’s my turn to take back what was taken from me.” “Please don’t do this.” She pleaded with him. He shook his head and picked up the pillow from behind her head. “No. No, I can’t turn back now. This is what I’m supposed to do Christy, I’m helping you. Just let me help you.” “Just let me go, I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” She tried one last time to get him to let her go. “No.” He laid the pillow over her face and pulled the wire around her neck tighter. He pulled it tighter and harder almost cutting through his hands. He didn’t let go until she stopped squirming. She was dead. And another lost soul was helped today.
Christy sat on the bench at the bus stop looking up into the dark sky in her hometown. She was home, her eyes were wide open as if watching the snow fall. It was snowing heavily and falling onto her face, but this time it didn’t melt away. It began to pile up onto her lifeless body and covered her view of the sky. She wasn’t waiting for the bus, she wasn’t waiting for a truck, she wasn’t even fighting with herself to make a decision. She was just sitting there until someone came along and found her. She had failed and now she was completely alone, just like her father said.
Food for thought for writers... from Margie Cullen
A blank page is like an empty mixing bowl. To create a manuscript with food for thought, use the following recipe: 1 c. idea 1/2 c. theme 3 or more motivated characters, to taste 2 tbs. suspense 6 oz. of setting 1 pt. voice 2 c. writing style 1/2 c. conflict Combine ingredients in mixing bowl with a dash of grammar and a pinch of dialogue. Pour into ungreased manuscript file, or on stick-well manuscript parchment paper. Bake until creative juices begin flowing. Remove and remix again until story is just right. Serve and enjoy!
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Our 2009 Non-Fiction Contest Winning Entry
A Summer Underground by Dave Patton The content of the following material is subject to copyright laws and restrictions. No part of it may be reproduced without the written permission of the author. © 2009 Dave Patton
When I awoke, I was in complete and utter darkness. We all remember as kids, hiding in our bedroom closet with the lights turned off, or having the electricity go out during a storm and thought this is what it’s like to be in absolute darkness. Looking back, a little light always managed to creep in from somewhere, the moon, the stars, lights from another town reflecting off the clouds or the light from the hallway slipping into the bedroom and under the closet door. Eventually our eyes would adjust and we would recognize our hand or a shirt hanging next to a jacket. Waking in my hiding place, a thousand feet below the surface, tucked away in some remote recess far from everyone and everything, stray light had to travel around many turns and go up and down many times to even begin to encroach upon my nest. I gradually came to realize my eyes were indeed open and had adjusted and I could not see my hand in front of my face, or anything else for that matter. I thought to myself, when I throw the switch I hope to God my miner’s light comes back on. It was between my sophomore and junior year in college, 1966, when I managed to land a summer job as a “mucker” for $2.79 per hour in Bethlehem Steel’s Cornwall Mine #3. The Cornwall Mine #3 started out as an open pit mine in the 1700’s and was the oldest operating open pit mine in the United States until 1972, when Hurricane Agnes flooded the mine and ceased its operation. During the Revolutionary War, the Cornwall Furnace located less than a mile from the mine, smelted the ore from the open pit producing cannons and cannon balls for George Washington’s Army. When the United States entered World War II, the mine became one of the major producers of nickel for the war effort, a heavily guarded secret. Also during World War II Eleanor Roosevelt became the first and only woman to ever go down into the mine. By the summer of 1966 most of the mining was done underground. Over time the mine earned enough revenue from the mining of nickel and copper ore to pay for the mining of its iron ore. I was teamed up with grizzled old miner nicknamed Big Shoes Tony who was known for bringing a watermelon and a loaf of bread to work for lunch. After eating the watermelon, Tony would use the bread to soak up the juice. How he got the nickname Big Shoes Tony was beyond me, since Big Shoes was a small thin bald headed guy with average sized feet. Big Shoes and I had just finished drilling about twenty ten foot long holes at various angles in the pitted rocky surface of the shaft face and filling them with dynamite and sheet shit, the miners’ pet name for granulized ammonium nitrate. The process was quite simple. First a stick of dynamite with an electric blasting cap stuck in one end was gently slid into each hole until it reached the bottom and then the remainder of the hole was filled with ammonium nitrate. The end result resembled a spider web of wires protruding from the holes culminating at a central point where the wire from the detonator was attached. Drilling was a dirty and noisy job requiring me to hold the spinning drill rod against the shaft face until the bit began digging into the rock. A mixture of oil and water was fed through a hole running the length of the drill rod to both cool and lubricate the bit. As the oil and water spilled out from the spinning bit most of it ended up running down my arms and spattering my face. This was all part of a job classified as “miner’s helper”. The position was a much sought after prize among the summer help. Not only because it paid an extra thirty cents an hour, but mainly how it played out over an eight-hour shift. After the drilling and filling was finished, a job taking about three hours, and usually ending at lunchtime, there was nothing left to do until the half hour before quitting time. For safety reasons, all new shaft blasting took place at the end of the shift while everyone was waiting on the landing for the ride back to the surface. That left nearly three hours with nothing to do. Being new to the mining of iron ore, from day one we were all told, “Always listen to the miners and follow their instructions. That way you won’t get hurt.” So I did exactly what Big Shoes told me. “Find a quiet place and take nap. Make sure you turn off your light,” Big Shoes instructed. “So the foreman won’t find your hiding place.” Relaxing in my underground hiding place, located far away from all the activity, is how I managed to wake up in pitch-blackness. My light came on when I pressed the button, as it always did, and I found my way back to the drill site just before quitting time. Big Shoes connected the detonator wire to the blasting cap wires and I spooled off the wire from the reel as we walked out the tunnel to the detonator. Let me tell you, there is nothing more exciting to a twenty-year old kid then yelling “FIRE IN THE HOLD!” while pushing down on the plunger and blasting a one hundred square foot hole in solid rock. For the first two weeks all new employees did just what the job title of “mucker” said we were hired to do, we mucked. Anywhere and everywhere iron ore was spilled or accumulated it was the mucker’s job, our job, to shovel it up. Shoveling iron ore is not like shoveling dirt. It requires quite a bit more effort for two reasons; one, iron ore is by its very nature much denser than plain old dirt and two, it is usually saturated with water, hence the name muck. It is like pulling a sixteen-pound bowling ball out of quicksand by balancing the bowling ball on the end of a shovel. To this day I credit not having any back problems to the summer I spent shoveling iron ore. Needless to say mucking was not one of our favorite jobs. Particularly when we had to go into the main shaft to shovel up the ton or more of ore that somehow missed the skiff during the production shift. The first time I met Joe Schmitt was at the Lebanon YMCA, when I was eight years old. I hadn’t seen him again until we both started working together that summer at the mine. Schmitty managed to land his job because his uncle Juke was one of the shift foremen. The layout of the # 3 mine was like the game Chutes and Ladders with an underground railroad thrown in for good measure. The miners began each shift riding the ore skiff down the main shaft to Level 7 located about eleven hundred feet from the shaft entrance where the majority of mining activity was centered. The shaft wasn’t vertical like the mines you see in the old movies about the coalmines in Wales. Instead it started down the side of the open pit, entering the ground at a 45o angle. There was a set of concrete stairs on one side of skiff tracks so you could walk down into the mine if you were so inclined. Schmitty and I never intended to cause a flood. It just sort of happened. Though most of the mining was done on 7, some mining was still done on Level 6. The ore from Level 6 was dumped into a large concrete chute that emptied into the slot on the Level 7 landing. When no ore was being dumped from Level 6, a large hydraulic metal door covered the chute, to prevent anyone from accidentally falling into the chute or dumping ore into the chute without getting permission from the Level 7 slot operator. Level 6 is where Schmitty and I were sent to muck up the ore from between the tracks so the water draining into the mine from the surface and from underground springs could flow unencumbered out to sluices along each side the dump chute and to the sump at the bottom of the main shaft. Three one hundred horsepower electric pumps then pumped the water to Level 5 where three more identical pumps pushed the water the rest of the way to the surface. On this particular day the only people working on Level 6 were Schmitty and I. Mucking is hard work and not very exciting, after about an hour, we tired of shoveling and began exploring the area. Finding some boards that at one time had served some purpose but didn’t seem to be doing anything at the present, I said, “Schmitty, do you think these will reach across the tunnel?” “Yes I think so.” Schmitty answered grinning from ear to ear and began dragging the boards down the tunnel and wedging them against two steel ladders on either side of the haulage tunnel creating an instant dam. “How deep do you think we can make it?” I asked rushing off to find more boards. By lunchtime my question was answered. The water level behind our makeshift dam crested at three feet, give or take an inch, forming a lake that stretched back into the tunnel beyond the reach of our light beams. But lunchtime is lunchtime and we had worked up an appetite hauling all those boards. It took about two and half hours to build our miniature Hoover Dam, but by hanging onto the ladders and using our shovels as levers to dislodge the board ends, Hoover Dam Junior collapsed in a matter of seconds sending a three foot tsunami swiftly down the tunnel and into the chute. With a mixture of pride and awe we watched as the wave of water disappeared from sight. As we turned and headed for the break room, Haps the shift foreman appeared out of nowhere. Haps was about fifty-five, which to a twenty year old is ancient, but for being so ancient he was in incredible shape and could move like a panther. One second you were all by yourself and the next he was standing right behind you. “What are you two numb nuts doing?” Haps shouted as he popped up behind us. “Mucking.” Schmitty replied while trying to push the boards out of sight. “Where did all the water come from?” Haps questioned, eyeing the remnants of our Hoover Dam Junior. “What water?” We both asked trying to look as innocent as possible. “The water that just gushed out of the chute from Level 6 and into the Foremen’s office? You two boneheads didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?” “Maybe there’s a big thunder storm going on up top.” Schmitty suggested. “You know a flash flood.” Unbeknownst to us, Haps had already formulated his own brand of punishment for unauthorized dam building. “Follow me. I think there is a leak in the cement pipe.” Haps ordered. Cement is blown from the surface underground through a pipe using high-pressure air. The pipe follows the stairs in the main shaft down into the mine. Because of the high pressure, the cement occasionally wears holes in the pipe causing leaks. Even a small leak was enough to cause a very big problem. So there Schmitty and I were galloping up the stairs toward the surface trying to keep pace with Haps who was easily taking stairs two at a time, looking for a hole in the pipe the size of a pin. Periodically we would bang on the pipe with the blunt end of a pickaxe and listen for a particular sound that indicated the location of the leak. In about fifteen minutes the three of us reached the surface having climbed a distance equal to twice the height of the Washington Monument. With Haps not even breaking a sweat and Schmitty and I almost catatonic with our knees shaking and gasping for breath, we all broke into the sunlight at the entrance never finding the elusive leak. As we stood for a second catching our breath Schmitty and I both thought, time to grab a coke, sit in the sunshine and rest up for the trip back down, but that was not to be. “Let’s go.” Haps shouted turning on his heel and heading back down the shaft. With our knees still shaking from the climb, we followed Haps back down. Our hasty trip to the surface having permanently and completely erased any thoughts of rebuilding Hoover Dam Junior from our minds. After two weeks of mucking, a period of time the foremen felt was sufficient to acclimate us to working underground, some of us were assigned the job of motorman, which in layman’s terms means the driver of the ore train. Driving the ore train requires a lot less effort them mucking, but in reality is just a boring. That is until the day someone yelled from behind me “It’s a bat!” It happened just as I was driving my fully loaded ore train through the set of blast doors, which separated the area being mined from the main landing where a spider web of tunnels making up Level 7 intersected with the main shaft. Besides the main ore slot, the landing contained the lunchroom and foreman’s office, which is precisely where the bat headed after flittering by me. No one knew exactly how the bat got down into the mine. Though it probably flew down one of the airshafts from the surface. This was not the first time an animal found its way down into the mine. Juan, another miner, once told me of the day he was operating a drift on Level 6, when a six foot black snake dropped out of nowhere and landed on him. “I was working drag on number six.” Juan explained in an agitated state. “When a giant black snake fell on me, I mean there it was crawling across my arms. I almost had a damn heart attack.” As far as anyone knew Juan never worked in that drift ever again and no one ever found the snake, but Swede who was working with Juan at the time swears the story is true. The bat was zigzagging around the landing as I brought my train to a screeching halt. Just about every morning at this time some of the miners would mosey out to the landing to sit in the foremen’s office, drink coffee, and brown nose with the boss. However, this morning the bat decided to join them. From my vantage point I could see directly into the office where four workers were perched on the wooden bench located directly across from the foreman, who was seated behind his desk with two other miners standing just inside the door. Let’s just say there was not room for another soul to fit inside the office except for maybe a three-ounce bat. I have never seen seven men move so fast or heard so many expletives being shouted as I did during the great office exodus. It was all asses and elbows as the seven men tried to simultaneously exit the office through one narrow doorway. To this day I still cannot figure out how Juke, the shift foreman, managed to get from his chair behind the desk and through the office door before everyone else, including the two fellows standing just inside the doorway. When the last man stumbled from the office, only the bat remained having unceremoniously seated itself on the bench. It was then the great plot to exterminate the bat was put into action only to have the bat disappear down the tracks toward an unused portion of the mine. Unfortunately this was the same set of tracks the motormen used to return their empty trains back to the working portion of the mine. For the next week, all the motormen were on constant lookout for the bat that would inevitably dart out of the darkness and aim its flight directly at some poor train operator’s face, nimbly swerving at the last moment. Taking the ore train into this part of the mine on a good day was never a fun experience. It was dark, deserted and water dripped continuously from roof of the tunnel. As a motorman you had to make sure your train had gone far enough past the switch so the last car would not derail when you began backing the train down the adjoining tunnel. To do this the spring loaded cantilever which road on an overhead 440 volt line had to be reversed by grabbing hold of the attached rope and swinging the cantilever 180 degrees allowing it to follow on the wire as the train moved backward. The water dripping from the ceiling would soak our gloves and the rope so when we grabbed the rope to turn the cantilever around some of the 440 volts would trickle down the wet rope, find its way through our glove and give us an unexpected jolt of electricity. For our own protection from the kamikaze bat, all the motorman kept shovels close at hand so we could swing wildly at the bat when it chose to make an appearance. Probably not the brightest of maneuvers while driving an electric engine pulling five to seven ore cars constituting a moving mass weighing close to twenty tons. Assassination attempts of this type went on until the day good old Schmitty finally managed to swat the unsuspecting bat out of the air with a lucky swing. The bat landed in the mud next to the tracks with Schmitty hopping from the still moving train in hot pursuit. When Schmitty finished pounding the mud where the bat had landed, there was not much left of the poor creature. “What in the hell were you thinking?” Juke yelled at him when he came back to the landing with the mangled remains of the bat quietly resting on his shovel’s blade, “You could have been killed jumping off a moving train.” But for all his bluster Juke could not hide the smile of pride that crossed his face knowing his nephew had finally ended the bat’s reign of terror. Schmitty’s status as a hero was short lived. Less then a week later we were moving our ore trains out to the landing with me in the lead. Schmitty had his engine literally glued to the backend of my train, following so closely that when my last car cleared the sensor and the blast doors slammed shut, Schmitty’s engine promptly smashed into both doors knocking them clean off their hinges leaving behind a pile of splinters. At a replacement cost of $2000 a piece uncle Juke was madder then hell and Schmitty instantaneously went from being known as the hero who smashed the bat to the dumb ass who smashed the blast doors. Besides being motormen and miner’s helpers, we also worked as stockman’s helpers. A stockman mines the iron ore by blasting it loose from an overhead vein using dynamite. The loose ore then falls down into the drift were it is then scraped using a drag through a steel chute into an ore car parked below. When working as a stockman’s helper, I worked with Hans. Hans should have been in Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not,” because of his ability to pass electric current over the outside of his body without ever receiving a shock. One day Hans and I were standing in the haulage tunnel waiting to follow Juke up a ladder to the drift we were working. Every time Juke would start up the ladder, Hans would grab the 440-volt train line with one hand and jab Juke in the ass with his other hand. Juke feeling a jolt of electricity would yell, “What hell was that?” and jump off the ladder grabbing his butt. Hans would answer, “Your battery pack must hit the train line.” Juke would start up the ladder again and Hans would grab the line again and jab Juke. After three tries and three jolts, Juke gave up and used the ladder on the other side of the tunnel. The most exciting thing about being a stockman’s helper was you got to use dynamite, lots of it. Dynamite sticks came in two sizes, the most common size being ten inches long and an inch and a quarter in diameter. The second, a much larger size was ten inches long and three and half inches in diameter, these were jokingly referred to as horse cocks by the miners. Extracting iron ore from a vein is a fairly simple process. First holes are drilled in the ore vein, then sticks of dynamite tied to cordite fuses are placed in each of the holes and the cordite fuses are connected to a single blasting cap. The dynamite blasts the ore loose and it falls down a concrete finger into the drift. While attempting to start up an old drift during one shift, Hans and I emptied a fifty-pound box of Dupont High Velocity dynamite, shoving horse cocks synched with cordite fuse up every finger in the drift. By the time we were finished, the drift was draped with so many yellow strands of cordite fuse it looked like a beginner’s attempt at macramé. Stockman use blasting caps with fuses that are designed burn for about three minutes, which gives the person igniting the fuse time to get well clear of the area. Three minutes, however, is more time then necessary to a seasoned miner. Often times they would use a pocketknife to cut off what they estimated to be about two minutes of fuse. Normally this shortening procedure works just fine unless you have a fast burn, which is when for some reason or other the fuse burns twice as fast as it should. This is exactly what happened when I touched my Philly’s Sherut to the end of the fuse. There was a big flash and Hans yelled, “Run!” Dropping the fuse I scrambled after Hans down the manhole to the next level. We were both dashing madly down the haulage tunnel in opposite directions as the fifty pounds of dynamite exploded with a deafening roar lifting our helmets from our heads, knocking the Sherut out of my mouth and me off my feet. Even with the strong breeze supplied by the fans in the airshafts, Hans and I had to wait an extra hour after lunch for all the smoke to clear. When our inspection revealed only a few rocks lying about and no iron ore, Hans declared, “Nothing more we can do here.” During that summer underground, I got to spend many hours with the miners of Cornwall Mine #3. I learned that many grew up during the depression and had to drop out of school to help support their families. None however, ever showed any resentment toward us college kids who made up most of the summer help. Instead the miners enjoyed engaging us in conversations on all types of subjects from politics to how their wives were treating them. We all gained tremendous respect for how they did their jobs in what was a dangerous profession. Most of all we respected the miners for how they took us under their wing and looked after us and protected us. My memories of my summer working underground are bitter- sweet. Two months after returning to college I got a letter from home with a newspaper clipping describing how a young miner named Mike was crushed to death by an ore skiff while working in the main shaft at Cornwall Mine #3. Mike had begun working that summer with the rest of us, but Mike started with the intent of making mining his career. He was working as a mechanic’s helper with another mechanic repairing the track in the main shaft. The hoist operator forgot the two mechanics were working in the shaft and released the locked-out skiff. The other mechanic was able to jump into the adjoining shaft, but Mike wasn’t able to get out of the way and was hit by the skiff. Mike was only twenty years old. Recently I drove past the entrance to the # 3 mine, but it is no longer recognizable. Forty some years have gone by since I rode the ore skiff down into the mine for the last time, but I can picture it as if it were just yesterday. |
Have a writing idea or a manuscript? Need some encouragement or commentary? The Central Pennsylvania Writers' Organization meets on the third Thursday of each month, and welcomes all writers to attend our meetings. Our next meeting is Thursday, July 16th, 2009 Where: 325 S. Railroad Street, Palmyra, Pennsylvania Palmyra Municipal Building 2nd floor, above the library. WiFi enabled.
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______________________ Our Mission The Central PA Writers Organization was founded to bring local writers together to share their writing and ideas. The group is open to the general public. Those who wish to do so can bring samples of their writing to be critiqued by the group. Speakers of various backgrounds in writing are invited to talk about their field of expertise, such as publishing, editing and other areas of interest to the group. There is also an annual writing contest with several genres including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry
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