Summer When I Was a Boy

Dear Monkey,

Yesterday I was making a delivery for my job at the music store and I visited an elementary school.  All of the kids were outside playing and having a picnic. It was the last day of school. This triggered a near-overwhelming wave of nostalgia in your dear old Daddy-o that he was not expecting. It got me to thinking about what things were like when I was a boy, and I thought I would write you a letter to tell you about it. I realize I could just tell you in person, but I'm not sure how much you'd understand right now, and I wanted to capture some of my thoughts.

When I was young, it was always summer or Christmas. I'm not sure how that happened or when it changed, but it is a fact. We didn't have autumn until I was in 7th grade, and thinking about that triggers a whole different set of emotions. And spring. Well, forget about spring. The very first spring happened when I was 13 and it was straight to adulthood after that. But when I was a young boy, all I remember were warm summer days and playing in snow drifts.

Maybe I'll tell you about our months-long Christmases another time, but I want to tell you about the summers we had, because it's summer now. Or it's close anyway.

Summer days in the 1970s were different than summer days now. There were only two types of weather: hot and thunderstorms. On the hot days, we would play in the woods or maybe go to the pool in town. Sometimes we would go to the lake — ours was called Little Beaver.

The woods behind my house — that's where your Nana lives now — held some of the most fascinating treasures back then. There were fossils, impressions of scaly dinosaur skin (indistinguishable from snake skin, except we knew it came from tyrannosaurs) and flora from when the Earth was young. There was a giant rock that we called Table Rock that had a small cave of sorts you could crawl into if you weren't too big. There were bits of wrecked automobiles from ancient civilizations and maybe pieces of an old house. I'm not sure where all that junk came from. We chewed tea berry leaves and peeled bark off of trees and dressed like red Indians and shot bows and arrows and cap guns.

Sometimes we'd go into the woods in front of the house that aren't there anymore. One time we took an old sheet and made a shelter by hanging it between some laurel bushes and we'd hide treasure there where no one could find it. Sometimes we'd go down to the creek or this little spring that used to come up in front of the house. There were giant crawdads under the rocks, as big as a man's hand, and big bullfrogs that were a foot around.

One time Daddy, your grandfather, discovered a bird's nest and showed it to me. He told me not to touch it and not to show it to Ricky Powers, our next-door neighbor, because he thought he would break the blue robin's eggs that were in them. Well, I did what any self-respecting five-year-old boy would do and immediately told Ricky about it. The next day I heard Daddy hollering for me in the yard and when I came to him, he pointed to the nest. All the eggs were broken. Then he took a belt and beat my ass with it.

I was spanked every other day when I was a child, but looking back, I should have been spanked every day. One time, when I was about three, I was playing in the house with my twin sister, your Aunt Sarah. She took an orange crayon and drew a large man on the wall in the hallway. Daddy found it and asked who did it and I told him the truth. I was a very honest boy, as you might well imagine, and quite righteous, too. I thought it was my duty to tell on your aunt. But do you know what she did? She said that I had drawn the big orange man on the wall! Can you believe that? Daddy said he didn't care who did and whipped us both with his leather belt. The lesson of this story: adults do not care about justice. Lesson #2: don't trust your Aunt Sarah.

Your grandfather made a swing set for us when were young. He built the frame from some sort of industrial pipe, sawed treated lumber for the seats, and hung them with heavy rope. Those swings lasted years. He also built a basketball goal, but since the property was on a hill, and the ground was grassy, the court wasn't much to speak of. I blame this for my foundering basketball career.

Daddy kept a slingshot and an air pistol beside his chair on the front porch, where he would sit smoking King Edward cigars. He would shoot at bluejays and cats, but I never saw him kill one. My bedroom window looked out on the porch and I could smell the sweet smoke and see the orange glowing tip of the cigar when I fell asleep on those summer nights.

There were a lot more stars back then. Scientists would probably tell me that I just can't see the stars as much now because we live in a city. I'm not sure about that. The moon seemed more intimate in those days, almost like it belonged to us. You could lay on the grass in the evening and look for four-leaf clover until it was too dark and then count hundreds of lightning bugs all over the yard. Then you stare up at the sky and pick out your favorite constellations. When I was a boy, everyone had a favorite constellation. Mine was Orion.

We also had these little worms in the grass that don't exist anymore. They looked like pale-green threads without any features at all. You would only see them if you stared into the grass for a long time. No one has seen them in years, because of course we are much too busy now to stare at grass.

Sometimes we would play games with the whole family. We played croquet, which is something people did in the 1970s. It was fun, but my favorite was lawn darts. These were very large steel darts that you would toss like horseshoes to try to land in a ring. When I was a boy, I loved to throw them high in the air above me to see how far they would go, then they would zoom to the earth and stick about six inches into the ground. I think they got banned because of little boys throwing them high into the air to see how high they would go and planting them in their sisters' heads.

Life was much more unpredictable back then.

Your Nana had to cook for Daddy, my four brothers and sisters, and me, which was a lot of food. On Saturdays, she would make big plates of hot dogs and cheeseburgers. Sometimes the cheeseburgers would come on buns, but usually they were on white bread that was grilled in butter. They were really delicious. And the grown-ups would put humongous slices of tomato and onion on theirs. They put onions on their hot dogs, too. Now that I'm a grown-up, I have to eat onions on my hot dogs and hamburgers, too.

Every summer Sunday after church, we always ate fried chicken. We all had special seats at the table and your grandfather sat at the head. I sat at the "foot" of the table, or opposite him. Mother sat to my right. We all had our favorite part of the chicken and that's what we got to eat. Mine was the leg. Your Nana ate the short leg. Somebody got the back, which your mom says isn't even a real piece, but she doesn't know about fried chicken because her people are not chicken people. We would get buttery mashed potatoes and deviled eggs and rolls and corn on the cob and either peas or lima beans, which were also really buttery. We also had cantaloupe and watermelon every day in the summer, and I would eat the watermelon down to the rind until I had a belly ache. Watermelons back then had seeds and that's how you grew new watermelons. I don't know how they grow new watermelons now.

We would pick blueberries or raspberries or wild blackberries to eat during the day. Or we'd pick strawberries that Mother and Daddy grew. Those were juicy, sweet berries as big as an apple. You can't grow strawberries like that anymore.

We ate candy back then, too, but our candy was different. During the summer we ate little candy dots that were stuck to paper and you had to pull them off and the paper would stick to the dots so you had to suck the paper off before you could really enjoy it. We ate push ups and dream sickles and wonderful grape popsicles.

The last day of school was officially the beginning of summer in the kid year. School was a lot more fun back then. We didn't have as many tests as they do now, and our teachers read stories to us everyday, and there was always time for crafts, and we played war ball. (Remember that life was much more unpredictable back then.) Because it was the 1970s, we also drew a lot of pictures of a rock band called Kiss, though none of us had ever heard any of their songs.

On the last day of school when I was in first grade, I tripped on the rubber mat going into the school and crashed my face into the metal post between the two front doors. Your Aunt Sandy had to take me to the hospital and I got stitches. The stitches were made of black thread and the doctor sewed them into my lip just like Nana would hem a pair of pants. Then Sandy took me to Burger Chef and then we hung out at Little Beaver for a little bit and then she finally took me back to Daniels Elementary, and I got back just in time to get ice cream before we all went home for the summer. The ice cream at school was always vanilla and it came in a little Styrofoam cup and you ate it with a little wooden paddle that tasted like a tongue depressor at the doctor's office.

The other time I got my lip busted was at summer recreation, which was this program they had at Daniels Elementary during the summer. I went for a couple of summers. One time I was hanging out with one of my friends, Chris Rissuci, and he was pretending to play guitar with an aluminum baseball bat, I guess because we didn't have any tennis rackets. He swung it behind himself and caught me right in the face. It chipped a tooth — a permanent tooth — and when Mother took me to Dr. Cincy, he mixed up a compound and made a bit of fake tooth to go on the chipped one.

Sometimes in the summer we would go see relatives, which meant a big car trip in the Cordoba. We drove over really curvy mountain roads to get to Logan or Mingo County. We would listen to music on the 8-track player and sometimes it would be rock and roll, like David Bowie, but sometimes it would be the Statler Brothers or Hank Williams. We would sing a lot during car trips, too, and your grandfather would sing songs from when he was a boy, like "Smile," or "The Little White Cloud That Sat Right Down and Cried." He loved to sing and I did, too.

If we went to Logan County, I always knew I was close to my grandmother's house when we rounded Three Mile Curve. There would be long-haired uncles there, wearing sleeveless undershirts and bell-bottom jeans, and there'd be more fried chicken, but they ate three-bean salad, which Mother didn't make at home. One of the uncles who didn't have long hair because he was older and worked in the mines had an above-ground swimming pool which was really something.

People looked different then, not just uncles. Everyone had long hair, but the men's hair was longer than the women's and the men had thicker sideburns. In the summer, we all wore tennis shorts that went up to your butt cheeks and long white tube socks to your knees that had colored stripes on them. All of the boys my age had haircuts like the Beatles unless their parents didn't believe in rock and roll and then they had crew cuts.

We would got to the city pool sometimes, but your old man doesn't swim very well, unlike your big brother and sister and your mom. But I still liked going, partly because of the smell. It smelled like chlorine and sun tan oil and this pizza they made that had crust that was like cardboard. I loved that pizza. I never went off the high dive because I was scared. Everyone was always playing their radios at the pool and you'd hear Olivia Newton John and the Steve Miller Band every time you went.

We'd go to the lake a few times in the summer, to fish and catch blue gill and throw them back or to feed stale bread to the ducks.  If we were with someone older, we might get to take a paddle boat onto the lake, which seemed like a real adventure.

Sometimes in the summer, if we couldn't go to the lake or the pool, we'd just put on our swim suits and spray each other with the garden hose out in the yard.  And we would run, really, really fast for a long time, just around the yard and around the house until we were too tired and then we would go inside and Mother, your Nana, would give a big glass bottle of Pepsi Cola.

A few times a week during the summer, there would be a great thunderstorm, nothing like the thunderstorms we have now. The rain would come in giant drops that sounded like drums when it hit the trees and the roof of the house. Sometimes we'd watch it from the porch and you could smell the rain, which smelled like 1970s rain that was warm and comforting, and sometimes we would run out in the rain and splash our bare feet in puddles in the yard. Everyone was barefoot in summer during the 1970s.

Just now I am thinking that I would like to see one of those old thunderstorms, and I would sit with you on the porch and you would smell it and could tell your son about it some day. But it's a warm, cloudless day, and you're down for your nap in your crib, so I am writing you this letter, so you will know why your old man acts the way he does and sometimes gets sad when it rains in the summer.

Sleep well.

Daddy.

Buffalo Creek

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply. The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries. Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM. A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people. Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

42 years ago today, my grandparents lost their home on Buffalo Creek in Logan County to a flood created when a coal slurry impoundment dam burst. 125 people lost their lives. A federal inspector found the dam "satisfactory" just four days before it burst. 

The flood could not occupy a more prominent place in our family mythology. My family speaks of "The Flood" as I imagine Shem and Japeth might have at 4th of July cookouts and such.

My mother and father had left Logan County by this time and were living in Wyoming County. My father was familiar with the "dam." He'd visited it several times and once told me that everyone knew its burst was imminent. The slurry water, black and mucky, rushed down the hollow that February morning, taking some houses off their foundations and washing cars downstream. By the time it reached Amherstdale, where my grandparents lived with their children who were still young enough to live at home, it filled homes more slowly. The water covered Granny's ankles when she left the house. Mother says she shut the front gate behind her, out of force of habit.

Grandaddy stayed behind. He escaped to the house's top floor and then made to the roof. The water eventually took the house with it, and he rode the house until it caught on a train trestle, where he climbed off. There he saw a neighbor's boy, face down on the ground, praying as hard as he could. He took off his coat and covered him with it.

My mother says that my father was the last person they "let in the hollow" before the National Guard shut off all traffic. He found his in-laws and he seems to have taken some of my younger uncles to stay with relatives. At least one of them stayed with my parents for several months.

My Uncle Joe played tenor saxophone in the school band and Mother says he was going that morning to a county band practice. One of his best friends, a boy who played saxophone with him, died in the flood that morning. Mother always thought Joey acted very different after that. He still went into the mines though.

Grandaddy, my father, his father, several uncles on both sides, and other assorted relatives worked for coal companies up and down that hollow and in places like it in the southern coalfields. The companies had names like Ameagle, Amherst, Winco, Aracoma, Guyan Eagle, and Pittston. The communities their workers lived in bore the same names. Sometimes one coal camp would be right across the narrow road from a coal camp of another company, their tipples occupying opposite hills and churning out the black stuff around the clock. Most of them lived in "shotgun" houses or, if they were a lucky, in a "bosses" house. My grandfather Paul was a tipple foreman, so their house was probably a little better than many of the others at Amherstdale.

The companies built the housing, even the churches, and ran stores than originally dealt only in company-issued scrip. It would be a mistake to believe that life in coal camps was only hard. If you speak to those who grew up in one they will tell you about playing at the pool, going to the Wesley House for youth group meetings, and dances. But they will also tell you about men covered in coal dust from head to foot, looking, even after they bathed, like they wore eyeliner and mascara. They will tell you about the way their gut wrenched when they heard the company siren blow, a signal that something was wrong in the mine, something that might mean their husbands and fathers might not come home that night. And if they lived on Buffalo Creek, they will tell you exactly what they were doing on February 26, 1972.

My grandparents settled quickly with the company and never regretted it. They moved up to McConnell on Three Mile Curve, closer to Logan.

Pittston Coal called the dam break an "Act of God." They argued that there was nothing they could have done to prevent the loss of life on that rainy Saturday morning. Everyone knew that was bullshit. The "dam" was really just settled sediment from the coal slurry, not a proper dam. There were no controls, no regulation, and millions of gallons of water were building up the pressure behind it. Everyone knew that Pittston was saying that to avoid the enormous payouts that might be owed families. But what could you do? The company was your benefactor, your employer, the one to whom you owed allegiance. 

In the end, the company lost that argument, a rare instance in the coal fields. Settlements were paid, legal precedents set. But after the slurry settled, little changed. Life continued much as it had, though savvy companies learned to rely more on developing technologies to take coal from the ground. Men were a liability if courts insisted you value their lives.

I was born that same year, just a few months after The Flood. Hearing about it as frequently as I did growing up undoubtedly influenced my thinking about a lot of things.

It's easy to imagine a grand legacy to the Buffalo Creek Flood. It's easy to imagine that in the coming years, West Virginians were protected by a more responsible coal industry and state and federal governments who worked together to ensure their safety. Yet that is not the case.

Instead, I sit at home in Charleston, miles away from Buffalo Creek, and I'm afraid to drink the water. I'm even more afraid to give it to my three-month-old son. I'm afraid because a coal-cleaning agent called MCHM was poured into the water source where my drinking water comes from. I'm afraid, because I know that our state's leaders have been bought by the coal industry, and rather than protecting us, they are frantically working to minimize damage to the purses of billionaires who live out of state.

I'm afraid. But I am also angry.

West Virginia, indeed all of Appalachia, is a violent place. It's violence is not only against the body though. It is the violence committed against human dignity. Until our leaders regard her citizens more highly that the wallets of their patrons, that legacy of violence will continue. 

The Myth of the Appalachian

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply. The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries. Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM. A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people. Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

I was able to catch all of the U.S. Senate hearing about the chemical leak. I heard just a bit of the House hearing that was conducted here in West Virginia, but I filled in the missing pieces via Twitter. I found little of either to be enlightening and much to be angry or saddened about. The most interesting remarks in the Senate came from Jay Rockefeller, who started speaking off the cuff: "I came from outside of Appalachia, so sometimes I see Appalachia in ways that are different than others."  He started talking about what he called a mythic Scotch-Irish fatalism, ". . . the idea that somehow God has it in his plan to make sure that industry is going to make life safe for them. Not true. Industry does everything they can and gets away with it almost all the time, whether it’s the coal industry, not the subject of this hearing, or water or whatever. They will cut corners, and they will get away with it."

I've been thinking about that Appalachian myth for a very long time, even obsessing over the idea. I suppose it is natural. We spend a good deal of our lives trying to figure out just who we are. If we are lucky, we are raised in a family that gives us a secure sense of our own identity and encourages us to be ourselves. Even so, there are powerful cultural ideas that can be hard to shake.

Here in Appalachia, we have always struggled to define ourselves. Even before Europeans got here, the place we call West Virginia served as a sort of borderland between tribes and was used as common hunting area. Some of the "tribes" who inhabited the area, such as the Mingo, probably weren't tribes at all, but smaller bands of native people who had left their tribal lands and lived in mixed groups of Cayuga, Seneca, and others.

The Europeans who finally settled were a mixed lot, too. Some were farmers, some were trappers, other were probably criminals hiding in the forest. There probably were a lot of Scots and Northern Irish, but also English, of course, Welsh, some Germans, and a smattering of others. They were Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, but some other lesser-known sects like Dunkards, too. I'm guessing there were probably a good handful who were happy to be living in the wilderness out of reach of church and minister.

There weren't large numbers of slaves, mainly because the land didn't lend itself to the large plantations they had in the deep South. But there were some, and Reconstruction brought more African descendants, including those working on the railroad.

When someone finally figured out how to start making lots of money from the coal in the ground, recent immigrant groups came in large numbers to the mountains: Greeks, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, even some Russians. They were mostly Roman Catholic or Orthodox and brought with them different ideas about family and culture.

Even this brief narrative is an oversimplification, of course. There were Jews from various places, small numbers of Asians, and more. Though perhaps not as diverse as America's port cities, it is a mistake to believe in the homogeneity of Appalachia. And even given the large ethnically European make-up of the region, there is no reason to imagine a general uniformity of opinion. There were secessionists and abolitionists, modern industrialists and farmers, Democrats and Republicans, Klansman and Communists, and everything in between.

Despite this, there has persisted in the mountains a romantic idea about exactly what it means to a true Appalachian. We've heard it in recent weeks since the chemical spill, in the form of our leaders heaping left-handed "praise" on their constituents: the people of West Virginia are a poor but noble race, hearty Scots-Irish stock, who love God and their families, are fiercely independent, and thrive in harsh conditions.

It's nonsense, of course. Some of us are rich. Some are wicked or servile. Some of us aren't Scots-Irish at all. Some are atheists. Some abandon their families. Some are extremely dependent on others. Some are soft.

I'm not saying they're all this way. I'm just asking that our leadership stop patronizing us.

The myth is useful to political and industry leaders. It is how they have justified taking land and mineral rights for a pittance for over a century. It is how they justify polluting our air and water. It is how they justify denying us economic opportunity. It is how they justify denying us basic civil rights.

As I watched the hearing today of the House Transportation Committee, I realized it was how they justify dismissing our voices, too.  Chairman Bill Shuster, R.-PA, had not called representatives of citizen's group to speak, but reluctantly gave those assembled two minutes apiece to voice their concerns. I listened with increasing disgust as it became clear that he was not interested in what these everyday people had to say. He answered most by dismissing them paternally and assuring them they were being taken care of.

The same way industry and government has taken care of us for decades.

Many of us are uncomfortable with the myth.

I might be Scots-Irish; no one in our family is completely sure. It's true I come from a family of farmers and coal miners, and they sure have been poor for a long time. A few have been god-fearing and loyal to family; others have been irreligious scoundrels.

But I am not an Appalachian of myth.

It's true, I like fiddle music and eating beans and cornbread. I can sing all the verses to "West Virginia Hills" and know the state flower, bird, and animal.

But I don't work in coal; I play saxophone. I think before I vote. I have read books --  a lot of them -- not just the Bible. I like films with subtitles sometimes. I like jazz and punk music. Thai is my favorite cuisine. I have my ears pierced and my hair colored. I like to travel.

I have lots of "Appalachian" friends. Some of their families go back generations; some of them just arrived. Some of them are Buddhist or Muslim. Some are gay or lesbian. Some are from Pakistan or Nigeria or Venezuela. Some of them have never been hunting, fishing, or mud-bogging. Some like Broadway shows more than football.

It doesn't make any of us less "Appalachian."

We live here.

We have a right to demand clean water and air, as much as anyone else.

We pay taxes, just like everyone else.

We're tired of being told we're not being true to our "heritage" because we do not kowtow to the wishes of the power brokers in this state.

We're not the "noble poor." Some of us have been (and are) poor. We can tell you that it sucks.

Some of us think that working all day entitles us to healthcare and decent wage. We're sorry if that spoils the image you have of us "simple folk."

I'm Appalachian and I demand that my voice be heard.

My Open Letter to the West Virginia State Legislature

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

Dear Delegate:

I am writing to you today as your constituent, as a father. and as a sometimes-proud West Virginian to ask you to support the "Water Bill" that came from the Senate (SB373).

I say "sometimes-proud West Virginian" because frankly, there are times I am deeply ashamed at the leadership of our state. Following our legislature can be a depressing exercise at times. The body seems reactionary at best and plagued by political pandering. I remember that there were over thirty bills introduced last year designed to protect our "gun rights." I cannot remember a single piece of legislation discussed related to water quality, though every member of that body knew that chemical plants dotted our river valley and that there had already been major chemical incidents in the last three years.

Disheartening, too, has been the rush by our leadership to defend the coal industry's connection to this incident at all costs.  As I am sure you are aware, MCHM is used in preparation plants for the cleaning of coal.  That alone makes this issue "coal-related."  But apart from that, the question on many of our minds is, "Why do 300,000 residents of a rural state like West Virginia use the same water source?"  The answer, at least partially, has to do with the fact that coal slurry has polluted the water table in many rural areas.  Coal companies have done this with impunity as our leadership has kowtowed to every demand from that sector.

Also of concern is that many of us now get water from for-profit corporations like American Water, instead of traditional public service districts. While it may be that privately-held companies can provide more efficient service, it is also obvious that they will put profits ahead of serving West Virginians. Clean water and air are basic human rights. It is clear from the actions of West Virginia American Water that they do not believe this. Our water bills this month have increased significantly, in spite of the fact that WVAW has been unable to provide a safe, quality product.

Many of us are further angered that it appears that Freedom Industries will be given chapter 11 protection to "re-organize," rather than simply liquidating and ceasing business in our state. As has been seen by their continued failure to safely store MCHM in Nitro, this company will seek to skirt any regulation they can. If a foreign power did to our water supply what Freedom had done, we would call it an act of terrorism. Instead, our laws will protect them and their leadership from any criminal penalty.

The attitude regarding this incident, as with most industrial catastrophes in our state, has been, "Privatize the profits; socialize the liabilities."  Although I hope you will support the "Water Bill," it is bit like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. We need leadership in our state that does not simply react to crises, but anticipates the needs of our people. We need leadership that puts our people above the profits of the fossil fuel industry, much of which leaves our state.

I urge you to act and I urge you to be part of the change we need in the Mountain State.

Regards.

My Open Letter to Natalie Tennant

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

I was unable to find an email address on the Secretary of State's website. I am publishing this letter openly and will share the link with her via Twitter.

Dear Madame Secretary:

I'm sure you do not remember me, but I have been an admirer of yours for years. I went to West Virginia University with you actually, and occasionally traveled with you during your tenure as the Mountaineer. I played with the basketball pep band, and I was immensely proud to see you serve as the first female mascot of our beloved Alma Mater. I continued to loosely follow you when you worked in broadcast journalism and when you began your political career. I've admired you and voted for you in the race for Secretary of State.

When you announced your candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated by Jay Rockefeller, I was hopeful. You have been a breath of fresh air, a departure from the "good ol' boy" politics that plague our state, and you seem committed to your principles. I looked forward to casting my ballot for you.

I live in the Kanawha Valley, on Charleston's West Side.  Like 300,000 of my fellow West Virginians, my water was contaminated with what we learned was something called Methylcyclohexanemethanol, a "foaming agent" used to clean coal. My water had the now-familiar licorice scent and I refrained from its use for weeks, finally using it to bathe and flush toilets, but not ingesting the water itself. To date, I am still using bottled water to drink, cook, and brush my teeth.

I do not work in the coal industry, though like many West Virginians, my family comes from coal.  My maternal grandparents lost their home during the Buffalo Creek Flood, my paternal grandfather lost a leg to the Winco Coal Company in the 1930s, and my father passed away just days ago from complications related to many ailments, including black lung disease.  He was a coal preparation plant foreman for many years, in fact, a "tipple boss."  I imagine he had regular contact with MCHM in the work that he did for several coal companies.

In the early days of the water crisis, you tweeted, "Today just showed again how when the worst hits West Virginia, the best in West Virginians come out. #ProudofWV #WVWaterCrisis."  I've heard this sort of thing my entire life.  West Virginians are a proud people, fiercely independent, etc., etc., etc., and they really shine the most during a crisis.

I will be frank: I think this is complete bullshit.

It's bullshit because it is a story that has been sold to us for over a century now, a story that tells us that it is our lot in life to suffer, to be the object rather than the subject, to be the victims rather than the actors in the story of our own lives. It's part of the Appalachian myth that imagines us as a band of noble Scots-Irish savages, with pure motives and a love of family and God above all things. It's sentimental and patronizing.

Nevertheless, I was willing to pass by this trite sentiment, expressed as it was when the crisis was fresh with us and when we were all seeking to encourage one another.

Then this week, President Obama delivered his State of the Union address.  I will be clear here, too: I'm not a great fan of the president. He's certainly not the worst executive we've had, but I take issue with much that his administration has done that has infringed upon our liberties. If you had spoken against his defense of the National Security Agency, federal persecution of whistleblowers like Bradley Manning, and the federal government's continuing use of cyber-security laws to imprison so-called "hacktivists," I would have applauded you. Loudly.

Instead, you said this: "If the president wants to promote opportunity, he needs to rethink his energy policies. The president is wrong on coal and I will fight him or anyone else who wants to take our coal jobs. At the height of our water crisis, no one could tell us how harmful the chemical was or what levels were safe. But the EPA has time to go after our coal jobs in West Virginia? That doesn't make sense."

In just a few sentences, you continued to propagate the nonsensical assertion that the president is waging a "War on Coal," and attacked the federal agency charged with regulating air and water. You did this in spite of knowing that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has primary responsibility for regulation of the state's water and that the EPA has been hamstrung in recent years by an anti-regulatory Congress, including four-fifths our own state's Congressional delegation.

I can only guess that you did this in hopes of increasing your chances of success in the race between the presumed Senate nominees: yourself and Ms. Capito. You know of our state's distrust of the federal government, their suspicion of our president, and the firmly held belief that without coal, West Virginia would cease to exist. Most importantly though, you pandered to potential fossil-fuel interests that you may need to bankroll your chances for a successful Senate race.

Like other prominent political voices in the state, you seem loathe to associate our recent water crisis with the dominance of the fossil fuel industry, in spite of the fact that both the chemical itself and the unregulated business environment created by the fossil fuel industry allowed this to happen. You continue to perpetuate a defense of an industry that has never treated West Virginians fairly, from the taking of mineral rights from unsuspecting farmers, to child labor, to unfair working conditions, to environmental hazards, right down to the lackadaisical safety attitudes at Upper Big Branch and the recent larceny by Patriot Coal.

There is no "War on Coal." According to the West Virginia Office of Mine Safety and Health, there were 119,568 coal jobs in 1950, leading to the production of 145,563,295 tons of coal. In 2012, there were 53,934 coal jobs, leading to the production of 129,538,515 tons of coal. In other words, we now use about half the work force to mine about a tenth less coal. What could be the explanation? Is it the fault of President Obama? That seems unlikely, since according to the WVOMSH there has been an increase in coal-related jobs during his presidency, though coal production itself has slowed.

The answer is simple: automation. It takes fewer people to mine more coal from the ground. This is not the fault of President Obama, it's the natural result of the market and the development of technology. Likewise, increasing use of alternative cleaner energy sources around the world may explain the slight decline in coal usage in recent years.

The fact of the matter is this: coal companies are taking billions of dollars of minerals from West Virginia ground each year and sending the profits mostly out of state, while employing fewer and fewer West Virginians.

There is more to West Virginia than coal and gas. Our people are our greatest natural resource and we could become a center for wind and solar energy, technology, or even the arts. This will not happen while our state's leaders offer corporate welfare to the fossil fuel industry. Our elected leaders are not able to ensure clean water and air for our children because of their pandering to coal money. We stand idly by while polluting industries are deregulated and given tax breaks, while our schools are prevented from teaching climate change lest our corporate overlords be angered, while our economic opportunities are increasingly narrowed, and while we listen to our leaders tell us just how good we are in times of crisis.

I am sick and goddamned tired of listening to it.

So it is with regret that I tell you I will not be voting for you in your campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Some have told me that I am "wasting my vote" to cast it for someone who goes against the coal industry. I'm guessing that your tenure as Secretary of State has taught you the same and you're playing the odds. This saddens me more than you can know. I had hopes that you would serve us well.

Warmest regards,

John A. Deskins
Charleston

10 Questions West Virginians Should Be Asking About the Water Crisis

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

In my opinion, every West Virginian should be asking our leadership these questions:

1. Why are MCHM and other chemical agents produced in the Kanawha Valley unregulated by state or federal code?  After multiple chemical spills in the valley, why has the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act not been reformed to protect us from these substances?
2. Why is virtually nothing known about the toxicity of MCHM?  How can we be sure that 1 ppm is a safe level for use?  Who provided that information?  What tests were conducted?
3. Why has Tomblin's DEP (and Manchin's before him) not been strengthened to protect our water sources?  How is it possible that this plant was last inspected in 1991?
4. Why has Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's sole action been to warn against water price-gouging?  Why has he not acted against Freedom Industries on behalf of West Virginia citizens?
5. Why is it that Senator Joe Manchin, Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin felt the need to immediately spin the disaster as not in any way related to coal?  How does that even make sense, given the fact that MCHM is used in the cleaning of coal?
6. Why do Sen. Manchin and Rep. Capito continue to attack the regulatory power of the EPA, even in light of these events?
7. Why do 300,000 people in a rural state like West Virginia rely on a single water source?  Is it related to the fact that local water tables have been polluted by coal slurry?  
8. How has the privatization of our water affected the water quality, and can we expect this trend to continue?
9. Why was Freedom Industries allowed to file chapter 11 protection and be repurchased by the same owners under the guise of Mountaineer Funding, LLC, a newly-created entity that did not exist until the date of the filing?
10. What did any of West Virginia's elected leaders do prior to January 9th to prevent this crisis from happening?

My Letter to Congress

On Thursday, January 9, 2014, residents of the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia learned that a chemical used to clean coal, 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (a.k.a., MCHM), had been spilled into the Elk River, upstream of a primary water supply.  The company responsible for the spill was Freedom Industries.  Many had suspected there was a problem all day in "Chemical Valley," as there was a notable licorice scent in the air, a scent we later learned was MCHM.  A strict "Do Not Use" order was sent from West Virginia American Water, effectively cutting water off for 300,000 people.  Schools were closed, restaurants and other businesses shut down, and medical procedures were postponed as we were told the water was only safe for flushing toilets.

This is my letter to my representative in the U.S. House, Shelley Moore Capito, regarding the event.


Dear Ms. Capito:

I am one of your constituents currently on my fifth day without water in the Kanawha Valley. I am employed by a small family-owned music store, also without water, and work as a performing musician. I'm also a recent homeowner, having purchased a house on Charleston's West Side. I had planned to move my family into the residence this coming week, but this water emergency has delayed that.

I am sure you are aware of the considerable inconvenience the lack of water has caused your consituency: no drinking water, no showers, no water to do laundry, and all the rest. More troubling is the massive economic impact. There are thousands of food service workers, bartenders, hair stylists, tattooers, and others who will go without wages. In my own field, there are dozens of musicians I know who have lost gigs because the bars, restaurants, hotels, and private parties who employ them could not open. As is so often the case, disasters like this most impact those who are least able to absorb it. The worst hit, of course, are the elderly and infirm who are shut-in and unable to make it to water distribution sites.

Much has been made by our political leaders and the news media of how wonderful West Virginians are in a crisis. When faced with gross corporate irresponsibility, our leaders turn to these myths of the noble poor to quieten communal discord. Neighbor helping neighbor, relying on faith and family, sharing with one another . . . these are all wonderful things. Yet one begins to suspect that these stories are told to keep us from asking hard questions, questions like, "How is it possible that MCHM is an unregulated chemical?" and "Why don't we know and understand the toxicity of this substance?" and "Why is a chemical like this stored so close to a primary water source for thousands of West Virginians?" and "What have our leaders done to ensure we have clean water for ourselves and our children?"

I believe I know at least a portion of the answer to these questions.

I grew up in southern West Virginia and come from a family of West Virginians. My father and many others in my family have worked in the coal industry. One of my grandfathers lost a leg while working for Winco Coal Company. The other lost his house in Amherstdale during the Buffalo Creek Flood. For as long as I remember, friends and family have always said, "Coal feeds us," and, "Coal pays the bills." Coal keeps the lights on, right?

It's not just coal, of course. The gas industry has a similar grip on much of our state. Fossil-fuel and related industries have a hold on the imaginations of West Virginians -- and a hold on our elected leaders, too. No one is elected to state or federal office who isn't beholden to industry leaders. This, of course, is why you issued a press release, just hours before the chemical leak became public, reiterating your fighting stance against the EPA. Although the release was about greenhouse-gas emissions, it was ironic to say the least.

Clean water (and clean air) seem at the very heart of why we have any sort of government at all. If these are not the "blessings of liberty," it is difficult to imagine what are. If the average person -- not to mention the very weakest members of our society -- cannot be protected from industries who would sacrifice our health for profits, then what is the purpose of our government?

I would ask several things of you as my representative in Congress, some specific and some more general.

First, I would ask you to work for the reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act. One of the reasons there was so little information about MCHM is that it was grandfathered in by the original act in 1976. As it is now, we are relying on information provided by the developer of the chemical, trusting that it is accurate. This is unacceptable. I would ask that you not only require more strict regulation of MCHM, but of all potentially harmful substances. It is mere luck that the chemical that Freedom Industries leaked was not deadly. The possibilities are frightening.

Second, I would ask that you stop seeking to strip the EPA of its regulatory power. It is this agency that we rely on as Americans to help ensure clean water and air. As much as we may depend on the coal and gas industries in our state, that means nothing if we do not have air to breathe and water to drink.

Third, I would ask that you desist from contributing to the toxic political culture of our state. Big Coal and Big Gas OWN our politicians, both Democrat and Republican. Before worrying if you will offend a corporate contributor to your election campaign, I would ask that you think of the elderly shut-in who has poisoned water this week. Before you attack the EPA, please think about my two-month old son who will grow up in a world with alarming changes in climate and weather as a result of our carbon emissions -- something innumerable scientists have proven, even if those in Congress don't believe it.

West Virginians may be a noble people. I know too many of them to argue otherwise. But I also know that they can be goddamn ANGRY people when their friends and family are attacked, as they have been by Freedom Industries. I implore you to work for change in the way we prevent these disasters.


Thank you for your consideration.

To My Mountain Mother, on Her Birthday

Today is the 150th anniversary of the founding of my home state of West Virginia. That's called a "sesquicentennial" in case you were wondering. I was born here and have lived here my entire life.

I've always been a proud West Virginian. I am not a knight of the Golden Horseshoe (you non-West Virginians will just have to Google that), but I do know a lot about our state's history. I can tell you the state flower and bird and animal. I can sing every verse of the official state song, "The West Virginia Hills."

Yet the holiday finds me with mixed emotions. I was walking with a friend the other day along the Kanawha River in Charleston, the state capital and the city where I live. The conversation turned to our state, as it often does when hillbillies get together. 

Our state has a colorful history. There is still a wild beauty to the place, which is completely enclosed in the Appalachian mountains, and that served as a type of borderland between the native nations who inhabited the eastern U.S. when Morgan Morgan, the first white settler came to the area. 

Yet by contrast, it is also a violent place, in a way that has captured the American imagination. First came the conflict with the native peoples, like the Mingo, as they were forced from their homes and hunting grounds. There were the infamous feuds between large Scots-Irish clans, the most legendary being the Hatfield-McCoy conflict.  The feud lasted decades and resulted in over a dozen murders of men and women, most of which were never prosecuted. Then came the mine wars, with bloody clashes between Baldwin-Felts detectives and coal miners led by the fiery Mother Jones. Sheriff Sid Hatfield was murdered on the McDowell County courthouse steps and the U.S. army was eventually sent in to do battle with the miners on Blair Mountain. 

Perhaps it's just my own perspective, but for such a small place, there seems to be much bloodletting: corrupt state and county officials, wielding their power to quell dissent; Klan lynchings; fights between revenuers and moonshiners; hundreds of deaths under tons of coal; unsolved murders of small-town socialites; fatal floods caused by acts of God and the carelessness of industry; and untold incidences of domestic violence.  There was even a "textbook war" - a violent conflict over a school book adoption in the 1970s that led to shootings and school bombings. 

I suppose I've been thinking about this the last few years. As I've traveled more of the state, I've become more convinced of the fundamental violence of poverty. It's not just that the poor are driven more to overt acts of violence, along with drug use, alcoholism, obesity, and all the rest. It's also that poverty itself is dehumanizing. We have accepted a myth in this country of romantic notions of poverty. But poverty is not ennobling. The lives of the very poor are lives of incredible stress, which some seek to alleviate through OxyContin or booze, and that occasionally erupt between family members or friends. Those who have not fallen prey to these likely find themselves in church pews on Sunday mornings, where they hear that poverty is only temporary, that they should busy themselves laying up treasure where moth and rust cannot destroy, that they should pray and have faith, that the God who created them wills their poverty, or else that they simply lack the faith necessary to reap the reward they desire. They live in extreme rural locations with no access to routine medical care or other services their countrymen take for granted. 

What we fail to notice is the systemic poverty - and violence - of the place. We have a government that serves the interests of the fossil fuel industries, both coal and gas. When they aren't doing that, they occupy themselves with ensuring ready and quick availability of weapons to the criminal and mentally ill, and wrap it in patriotism and Jesus. 

Lest anyone think I'm advocating some type of socialism, I am not. It's just that our entire state has built itself around one or two business interests, instead of the interest of her own people. There are still "coal barons" who pull millions (and billions) of dollars of minerals from beneath the feet of the poorest of the poor. We accept that they "own" the coal - forgetting the untold eons it took to form.  Many who comfort the poor with tales of golden streets rush to defend the rights of the super-rich to possess the Earth itself. The meek may inherit the Earth, but Don Blankenship probably owns the mineral rights. 

It's not just coal and gas, though they historically have profited the most. And it's not just our government - it's our entire culture. We do not ask our children, "What are your aspirations?"  Instead, we seek to prepare them to serve the dreams of the wealthy. 

I know that West Virginia is not alone in this regard, but it serves as a case study, perhaps, of our failures to our fellow travelers in this world. And it's also my home. 

So happy birthday, Mountain State. I hope this evening to enjoy the fireworks over the Kanawha, sitting on the sun porch of my apartment, just across the street from the governor's mansion. My dream for you is that you come to embody your motto: "Montani Semper Liberi" - "Mountaineers are always free" - and that this freedom would come to embrace the very least among us.