I now claim

[Homicidalheathen]

Cause he survived being GNAWED ON BY RIVER RATS in his crib as a baby

Because, he is NOT AFRAID of bullies and STANDS UP for what is right, regardless of how odd it seems

He is TOUGH and hauls water to stay where he can protect his family graveyard

http://www.mountainkeeper.org/

When I was a kid, our place was like a wonderland. People used to make fun of me and say I was my father’s retarded son – they’d call me that, you know? One of the things they couldn’t understand was that I was always able to get close to the wild animals. I’d go out in the woods and come home with a bobcat or a squirrel or a coon. One time I was helpin’ my dad fix a swing, hang a swing, and I had my bib overalls on. I was settin’ there and squirmin’ and bouncin’ around. My dad asked in a kind of angry way what I was doin’ and a frog started jumpin’ out of my pocket.

We never had toys. The only toys we had was in the Spiegel catalog when we went to the bathroom. But it was a wonderland, you know? You could walk through the forest. You could hear the animals. The woods like to talk to you. You could feel a part of Mother Nature. In other words, everywhere you looked there was life. Now you put me on the same ground where I walked, and the only thing you can feel is the vibration of dynamite or heavy machinery. No life, just dust.

How was it when I was a kid? I’ll put it to you this way – when they took me to Cleveland, that’s the first time that I ever knew I was poor. They told me I was poor. Me? I thought I was the richest person in the world. I didn’t want for anything. I’d get out in the woods, and on my way, if I was hungry I’d pick my apples. I had a pocket knife I always carried – I’d cut cucumbers up in somebody’s garden. Or I’d get chased out of somebody’s apple tree. I’d get berries along the way. Pawpaws – I loved pawpaws. And gooseberries.

All these things are no longer there. Now they’re forcin’ wild boar into my area, and deer into my area, and there wasn’t any kind of animal like that when I was a kid. Mostly all small game and an occasional bear. Every other year or so we’d see a bear. Now they’re forcin’ the bears in on me. A bear needs 50 acres to feed on and now there’s nothin’ for ‘em.

In my childhood, I had a pigeon. I’d come out of my cabin and no matter where I went, he was either flyin’ over my head or settin’ on my shoulder. One time I had a hawk. I named him Fred. For the longest time he was around, then all of a sudden one day he didn’t show up. I had a bobcat, and I had a three-legged fox that got caught in a trap. I kept it until it got healed and then it wouldn’t leave. I wouldn’t trade my childhood for all the fancy fire trucks in the world that the kids had. Nor toys.

It was a hard way, but it didn’t seem so hard because it’s the only way we knew. What would you walk four or five miles to school for? Because that’s the only thing you knew. Now you can’t get a kid to go to the front door to catch the bus. I didn’t see a TV ‘til I was 13. Didn’t talk on a phone ‘til I was 14. Now when my kids was growin’ up, I’d threaten to take the TV off ‘em. “How we gonna make it for a whole month without a TV, Dad?” they’d say. That’s the problem today - we ain’t one with the earth no more.

I don’t know what the answer is as far as what’s happenin’. Destroyin’ all the environment – all the streams. When I was a kid, down at the bottom of the mountain, I could get crawdads, pick ‘em up out of the water with my toes. Now nothin’ lives in the water. Nothin’ lives on the land. What they’ve done is irreversible. You can’t bring it back.

I was just asked this question last week when I was in Tennessee. A lady said, “We’ve been readin’ where you’ve been fightin’ for eighteen years. We’d like to know what keeps you goin’.” I just told her I was right. You know, if you’re right, you’re right. There’s no other answer. There’s one thing I was taught at a very young age, as a boy livin’ in the coalfields. We didn’t know the United States President, but we knew the United Mine Workers’ President. In other words, we was organized as young people. And that’s the way I grew up. Organized. You learn to fight back and you fight back. You have to fight back.

That’s the way it was, and that’s the way it is for me today. And that’s the way I try to reach out to people, to show ‘em. There is a sayin’ I’ve lived by all my life, “If you don’t stand for somethin’, you’ll fall for anything.” That’s not an original statement, somebody else came up with it. But the thing is, it’s true.

I came through here four or five months ago tryin’ to find some family of mine that was in Cleveland with me when I was a boy. Ain’t no sign of anybody that I used to know. And that’s the way it is all through the coalfields. We’ve lost 25 percent of the population because of mountain top removal. Remember I said a while ago, we used to have 25,000 miners in my holler. Now we got 500, and they do the work of 25,000. We’ve lost 130,000 people in my holler.

"Every law that’s ever been written has been written in a coal miner’s blood."

People need to grab a hold of what they’ve got, or once the coal company gets through there’ll be nothin’ left. This ritual of takin’ our men to mine for coal – there’s not one life worth losin’ for coal. As of 1997, we’ve lost 200,000 men to black lung and cave-ins alike. We lose men every year. And this disaster we just had [at the Sago mine], now people are lookin’ at it. Now people are passin’ laws. Every time somethin’ happens like the Buffalo Creek they pass laws. But then they twist the laws and they still break the laws. Every law that’s ever been written has been written in a coal miner’s blood.

What I want to say now at the end of this is to encourage people to stand up against oppression and speak for theirself. Because if they’re waitin’ for the people that’s doin’ it to ‘em to speak for ‘em, it’s never gonna happen. They’re gonna keep takin’ and takin’ and takin’. Folks have to get in their head that the people that’s doin’ it to ‘em don’t’ care about ‘em. They have to care about theirself. They have to take control of their own destiny. Whether it’s a coal company or a chemical company or what, they’re not gonna do it for the people. The people have to do it for theirself.

[Simon Bar Sinister]

not a one of those links worked for me. :(

honorary goth (lifetime) - Faith Hill