bullets and dynamite and dead men in davy

We were in Iaeger at The Hollywood Dairy Bar. A diner-type joint on the shoulder of Route 52 in McDowell County, West Virginia.

Pa was talking about hot dogs and how ‘you can’t beat ’em at this price’ when a red pickup drove by.

“Me and him,” Pa pointed at the passing truck, “We was in a a gunfight one time that’d make Matt Dillon cry.”

The Euro and I nodded. Gun fight. Gunsmoke. Not really paying attention. Until my grandfather started talking about bullets and dynamite and dead men in Davy.

“They was hid up in the mountains. Prisoners the Company brought in to guard the scabs. All with rifles. Them bullets was singing past my ears all morning long. They’d light bundles of dynamite too, just like firecrackers, and KABOOM! One day we had 42 charges thrown down on us between 9:30 and 1:30. And weren’t no law would come up there. Why, the constable lived right down the road!

“Now this was the Mohawk mines. But I had a good friend get killed on the picket line in Davy. Shot right through the head. And nothin’ ever done about it. ‘Course nothing ever was done about them things. ‘Cept when Sid Hatfield got caught up for those Pinkertons gettin’ killed. And him gettin’ killed too. Right there on the courthouse steps.

“That was at the same mines as ours – Mohawk. Old Sanford Cline said he’d never seen a thing like it. And he was in the war!

“Now that Sanford was somethin’ else. The Company’d bring in truck loads of men. Try to get ’em through in one big push and we’d always ask ’em to respect the picket lines.

“Sanford’d walk up to ’em and say ‘Now boys, I’m a peaceful man who don’t want no violence. I’d be pleased if you’d just turn around.’ They wouldn’t turn around for nobody but Sanford. ‘Course he had a 45 sticking out of both pockets.

“Them was bad times. But a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do to be a man. And them companies weren’t treating us like men. Payin’ a dollar a ton and that in scrip you couldn’t spend no where but their stores and their houses. And them keeping prices so high and rent no workin’ man could afford.

“The union saved many a body, boys. It saved me. Course I don’t know what it does now. I had my first heart attack on one of them picket lines. And they never had me back.”