"The Coal Mine"
The coal company Marshall worked for offered me a job for the summer of 1979. I went back to Butler to stay with Marshall and went to work during the second shift. It was very good money, and I knew that by the end of the summer I would be able to buy a better car and have enough left over to last the school year.
We were given work assignments as general labor. The first one was on a dragline that they had split the decks on, to weld up the cracks in the interior. We would crawl down into the belly of the beast and fire-watch as the welder would work. They would often tell us to go ahead and take a nap stating should a fire break out, no one was going to beat them out of there. I never could. I just sat there all night keeping a look out. Easy work though.
The next job I was assigned was to drive bolts through these one-inch-thick plates of steel being attached to the side of the machine to seal over and strengthen cracks that had been welded. A sledgehammer and slow progress made this a harsh job.
It didn’t take long for Marshall to start doing the crazy mental thing. He would come into my room before he went to work and tell me he was going to kill me one day. I lasted about a month, finally deciding that it was not wise for me to stay.
After a few weeks, he tried to get me to come back but the mine had canceled my contract for the summer. I was relieved. I never went back to the mine.