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Shelly.
Jul 23, 2010 18:15:09 GMT -5
Post by cornirog on Jul 23, 2010 18:15:09 GMT -5
Shelly.
You could never forget Shelly, with his be-bop-a-lu-la - Gene Vincent at six o’clock on the manrider train.
The flume of baccy juice at his feet, an act to the management, “not too close sunshine”, don’t step on my men.
Brothers underground - carrying Tommy Collier out the pit twice in a week. a camaraderie I grieve to have lost.
I wish I could have spoken to him in those last days, joking in his wheelchair, running the nurses ragged at 63.
I could have told him thanks for pointing me the right way. thanks for the humility the grace and honesty of a real man - for your hand at my weakest time, for your truth Shelly - for a friendship hewn in Anthracite.
Now the tools all rodded up, snap box empty, water gone. rest now mucca, your ratch is won.
For Mick Sheldon, my mucca. Passed away 2005.
Note: a ratch was 10 yards of coal blasted and hand filled by one man during his shift roughly 10 ton of coal.
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