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Once again, money became tight, and my job, counselling juvenile delinquents, which had been two miles down the road, just moved 40 miles away. So I was back in the same situation that I had left behind me at Titus. I heard that Dunkard Mine was hiring, so I went and applied. I got hired as a buggyman at Dunkard Mine and started on the afternoon shift. The mine was a small place, low like Titus, and in the retreat phase. The mine was much dryer and the top was about 44 inches. The men were very experienced, older miners from Shannopin and New Warwick.

I spent a short time on the buggy, because the miner helper on the other shift was scared to be at the miner. Sam was blind in one eye and conditions were a little hairy at that time. We had some overrides, and when things happened, they happened pretty quickly. We rotated between day and afternoon shifts for production and midnight was a maintenance shift. The miner operator on the other shift would leave too much coal and the idle shift every day was a bad combination for rib line mining. Sometimes we prayed for the top to come in for relief of those overrides. Sam wanted to go back to running buggy and I was assigned as miner helper.

Old Joe Gashie had operated continuous miner for 23 out of the 27 years that he had spent in the mine. He was a valuable teacher. I learned to run continuous miner a little bit under his direction. Joe could make that machine do anything. It was a Simmons Rand hard head. It did not have a remote, but was a kitchen miner. I learned a great deal about bad top, and top in general; what to look and listen for. The rib line was a valuable teacher in itself. No one does retreat mining anymore to amount to anything.

My first fall is one that I will never forget. When it came, we were running away, but it sucked me back in. I wound up on the bottom with my hat jerked off my head. I will never forget the “dirt douche” we called it, when the top came down. It fell with such force that man doors were blown open three belt lines outby on the main haulage. We used wooden posts in our retreat process and there was much “lugging and tugging”. Old Mike taught me how to roof bolt on an ancient, single boom Galis bolter. At this point, I could run any piece of equipment on the section.

One afternoon shift, the boss was running miner. He wanted to get one more buggy of coal off the small stump that was left, called a “skinny”. I had been watching the top as we had been setting in an intersection, where the top had previously come down and had been rebolted. There was a lip where the top was uneven in that intersection and a crack along it. I was watching this crack while the boss removed that final lift. After he got his last buggy, I bent over to pick up the miner cable and it happened! The top came fast, and if it gave warning, neither the boss nor me recognised it. I dropped the cable and ran, because the miner was already covered up. The boss stayed in the kitchen until the fall was finished. He had just enough room to squeeze out of the kitchen and get to safety. We spent three shifts, and many sticks of dynamite, to recover that miner. What an experience. I stayed at Dunkard for a short time and left when Maple Creek hired me to work at their new High Quality Mine.

It was nice, in a way, to go to high coal after working in low, sloppy coal mines. The only drawback to high coal is that everything is so heavy, and I have a difficult time reaching anything. Maple Creek started me as a GIL. I performed all phases of mine construction and grunt work. The shift foreman found out that I had face experience and I ended up assigned many shifts on some loading crew. I got tired of being bounced around, so I bid on a belt repair job and got it. I learned how to install transfers, take-ups and drives, and how to work on wipers and scrapers. I worked on the belts until our first lay-off and I lost my bid.

The low men on the totem pole always returned as GILs, so when I came back, I was worried that I would end up anywhere. However, the shift foreman split my time, both on the section and on the beltlines. I also was assigned to work on a couple of falls; one was on our slope, which caused a lay-off, but my experience with bad top resulted in my services in bolting on that fall. However, it got to the point where I was only assigned to the belts when it was time for a move and I did not like that.

I ran scoop quite a bit when at Maple Creek and was pretty good at it. I had much practice at Titus and Dunkard Mines. I was assigned to either load out or set shields and pan line during longwall moves. Eventually, a bid came open for scoop operator on the gate sections, weekend warrior schedule, and I bid on it. I started weekend warrior as scoop man and worked very hard. The scoop operator job at Maple Creek was so undesirable (if I told someone what I was required to do, they would never believe it), that I was one of the few to bid on it. That is another story in itself.

Maple Creek did not receive longwall permits after mining out our fourth panel of the new mine and I have since moved to Consol Energy.

Now, with Consol Energy, I have been able to take the positives that I acquired while in those other mines and put them to good use. I really like what I am doing now. I am in the safety department as a safety inspector trainee at the Blacksville No. 2 Mine. I am also studying again and have eventual plans to obtain a Masters Degree in Safety. This year I plan to obtain my West Virginia Mine Foreman Certification.

I Come From A Long Line Of Colliers

Joshua Caldwell