I’m from coal dust as much as stardust.
I’m from a coal town in the Alleghenies,
a patchwork quilt of ethnic minorities,
all poor except those who weren’t.
I’m from potatoes, casseroles, homemade noodles,
and the aroma of fresh bread,
soup for breakfast on frigid winter mornings and,
plain cooking, and practical life.
I’m from white-tail deer country,
pure mountain spring water,
from cricks and hollers,
a dense laurel-laden forest,
fishin’ holes created by beaver dams,
from Northey to Southy and beyond,
a playground I thought was Eden
where anything I needed or wanted
was in walking distance.
I’m from cinders on winter roads,
boney piles, and the smell of burning sulfur;
from generations of dollar-a-day miners,
men who knew Sunday
as their only day in the sun.
I’m from a heritage of resolute women who
challenged the powerful,
marched for just causes,
and ran for office
even before they had the right to vote.
I’m from Frank and Sue Louise called Louise
by everyone but Frank, who called her Suzie;
from a household nesting grandmothers and cousins
in rented houses with napkin rings on the table.
I’m from quiet BTV evenings reading classics
and listening to classical, swing and jazz
prepping my brother and me
as the family firsts to go to college,
an obligation I knew was mine
as early as fourth grade.
I’m from an Irish-Catholic, Scot-Presbyterian,
catechism and flannel-board-Jesus childhood
with an ecumenical gaggle of friends.
From childhood days of
“I’m leaving, Mom” in the morning and
“You be home by dinner, Michael”
knowing precisely when dinner would be.
I’m from 15¢ movies with a cartoon and newsreel
and 25¢ double features on Saturdays.
I’m from climbing up on a stool at the soda fountain
in the drugstore to get a sundae or Lemon Blennd;
and later the single packet “Speedy” Alka Selzer,
the before the double-the-price pop-pop fizz-fizz
two in a packet version.
I’m from digging out swimming holes along Cold Stream
on cool spring days before the town lake opened
that my brother and father dug out before me.
I’m from two-cent bubble-gum cards
attached to my bike spokes,
from marbles, mumbly peg, red rover come over,
“High-buckety-buck,” and footballs
made out of socks and friction tape
that at school we would put in our pockets
alongside our knives.
I’m from a generation that disappeared
when the jobs along with the deep coal ran out,
and the next war began.
The education that was to secure our future
became our underground railroad
to escape the mines
and the town.
The “Where I’m From” of my children
was to be built west of Eden.
