{"id":702,"date":"2008-03-27T02:29:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-27T02:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/27\/bullets-and-dynamite-and-dead-men-in-davy\/"},"modified":"2009-12-30T11:28:41","modified_gmt":"2009-12-30T11:28:41","slug":"bullets-and-dynamite-and-dead-men-in-davy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/27\/bullets-and-dynamite-and-dead-men-in-davy\/","title":{"rendered":"bullets and dynamite and dead men in davy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We were in Iaeger at The Hollywood Dairy Bar.  A diner-type joint on the shoulder of Route 52 in McDowell County, West Virginia.  <\/p>\n<p>Pa was talking about hot dogs and how &#8216;you can&#8217;t beat &#8217;em at this price&#8217; when a red pickup drove by.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Me and him,&#8221; Pa pointed at the passing truck, &#8220;We was in a a gunfight one time that&#8217;d make Matt Dillon cry.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>The Euro and I nodded.  Gun fight.  <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gunsmoke#Television_version\"target=_blank>Gunsmoke<\/a>.  Not really paying attention.  Until my grandfather started talking about bullets and dynamite and dead men in Davy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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&#8217;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&#8217;t no law would come up there.  Why, the constable lived right down the road!  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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&#8217; ever done about it.  &#8216;Course nothing ever was done about them things.  &#8216;Cept when Sid Hatfield got caught up for those Pinkertons gettin&#8217; killed.  And him gettin&#8217; killed too.  Right there on the courthouse steps.<\/p>\n<p><center><img src='http:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/sid-hatfield-matewan.jpg' alt='Sid Hatfield.  Matewan.' \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That was at the same mines as ours &#8211; Mohawk.  Old Sanford Cline said he&#8217;d never seen a thing like it.  And he was in the war!  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now that Sanford was somethin&#8217; else.  The Company&#8217;d bring in truck loads of men.  Try to get &#8217;em through in one big push and we&#8217;d always ask &#8217;em to respect the picket lines.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sanford&#8217;d walk up to &#8217;em and say <em>&#8216;Now boys, I&#8217;m a peaceful man who don&#8217;t want no violence. I&#8217;d be pleased if you&#8217;d just turn around.&#8217; <\/em> They wouldn&#8217;t turn around for nobody but Sanford.  &#8216;Course he had a 45 sticking out of both pockets.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Them was bad times.  But a man&#8217;s gotta do what he&#8217;s gotta do to be a man.  And them companies weren&#8217;t treating us like men.  Payin&#8217; a dollar a ton and that in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scrip#History\"target=_blank>scrip<\/a> you couldn&#8217;t spend no where but their stores and their houses.  And them keeping prices so high and rent no workin&#8217; man could afford.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The union saved many a body, boys.  It saved me.  Course I don&#8217;t know what it does now.  I had my first heart attack on one of them picket lines.  And they never had me back.&#8221; <\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &#8216;you can&#8217;t beat &#8217;em at this price&#8217; when a red pickup drove by. &#8220;Me and him,&#8221; Pa pointed at the passing truck, &#8220;We was<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hum-drum","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buffyholt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}