Nashville,TN

Nashville, Music city, endless bars with life music, The Grand Ole Oprey, lively streets. Modern and old mixed, but yes, the first city one can walk around in because there actually is a human sized down town.

 BB KIng, Willy Nelson, all the assorted country paraphernalia, the legends surround you here. Music from the bushes, music coming at you from every open door. The city breathes, lives music, certainly in the days of preparation before the MCA Awards. From Thursday on there won't be a bed to be had in town.

All is tradition and the TV plays a loop of stars to be promoted.
Sweltering, hot and humid afternoons in Nashville at the banks of the Cumberland River in a dream of Country.

 Emmylou Harris on MTR

Kingsport-Knoxville-Nashville

© sms:foto duisburg/rhein 2011

On the road again and what does one see? Car places with festive streamers, sparkling cars, many big gas hogs for sure and in the smaller places along the road junk yards pretending to be repair shops.

Even in Kingsport where the city center was restored, it is not a walkable city, no place to sit down and watch the world go by. Cars are king, without a car nothing goes in this country, whereas at home, sometimes I don't use my car for a week or more, taking trams or walking.

At the end of the road one needs a drink. One. But which one. The liquor store straight across from the motel. Of course being in Tennessee it became the smallest Gentleman Jack...

In Knoxville stumbling upon  one of the hundred best Asian restaurants and proud of it.
It sure was a good meal and a customer taking a picture of the boss and her helpers... Go there Hashi in Knoxville. Excellent light tempura and hibashi veggies.

The road to Dante

Railroad, river and church at a crossroad in Dante. Faded publicity and green mountains and hill  and meadow: from deep viridian green to lime, to verdi gris, Green is the Appalachian color and of course the black of coal. Driving the coal heritage road gives one matters of life and death to consider. Mine disasters, poisonous effluents, small faraway villages where the old lady's, two were born in Dante, keep the local museum open.

Dante was a union mine. Massey Big Upper Branch mine is not.

Sweet and glad that strangers are interested in their heritage.

Friend caring  about their roots and place.
Doing bake sales, repairing old buildings, keeping the past alive.

That was Coal Heritage Road, a good way to see the country.



A video about MTR

Upper Big Branch Massey mine explosion, April 5, 2010

 In the explosion at the longwall of April 5, 2010 of the Massey mine near Whitesville 29 miners died. 29 helmets with their names on remind the passerby's of the disaster. Some families like Davis family lost 3 members.

While thinking and taking some pictures a car drove up and Delbert got out of the car.

Delbert happened to have a scheduled day off and the young college was changed shifts, they both were part of the crew that lost 29.

 There are several memorials along the road, very moving. Eating a bite at the local diner, one can see all the names on the window. That brought it home to me: The whole community is affected when something like that happens. It are not just fathers and husbands, brothers and nephew, but friends and acquaintances and neighbors and customers, all that share the life of the miners.

Delbert is a certified electrician: this is his helmet with the names of all his workmates on the helmet among little stars. He with Skeen Grover installed the first long-wall and the last. A long-wall is like a big slicing machine, cutting of a few inches of coal at the time over a length of 1000 feet. It was at the end of such a wall, where ventilation probably wasn't too good that the explosion occurred. The evidence seems to point to the fact that safety came not first, notwithstanding that Massey's motto was: Safety first, productivity second. Another memorial has the names of the 29 miners written on a piece of coal. The mine has just new owners Alpha operations. Their motto is Do what is right. Let's hope the miners are safer from now on. Glück auf! Delbert and all the crews.

Exhibition Coal Mine

Exhibition Coal Mine docent Marvin, ex miner explains the tools and work methods of miners in this area. On a small flatbed train we enter the mine, a coal mine, mined out. Empty tunnels, hollows.
The miners mad a good wage for those days: 2 $ a day. Of course they had to bring their tools, their blasting powder, food and water.
All the mine company provided them with was a place where to start working and digging.

In these pictures you'll see some machinery. That is purely for educational reasons that they are exhibited here. The miners her only worked with a pick and a shovel, and some blasting powder. Of course they had a type of lamp to to check on CO in the mine and coal damp.

Just today in the regional newspaper of Beckley The Register Herald I saw an article stating that the Pinnacle Mine is shut and flooded with water because of elevated Co levels...

Here the miner showed the working of a carbide lamp: put the powder in, add a few drops of water, close the container and you have a light for up to five hours. And the miners knew how to refill the lamp in total darkness. They would lay on their side and pick away at the seam of coal. Their pail for food was in metal to keep the rats out, it also contained half a gallon of water for a hard days work.

The banks of the Ohio

Having crossed from Ohio to West Virginia one encounters the river flowing proudly and wide, even having flooded some farmland with the month long rains in the area. It is immediately clear that this is coal country. The barges are loaded, waiting to bring their load to the coal burning plants. Good or bad? A good thing for sure is that after the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster that the Americans aren't too hot on more and more nuclear power plants.

Yet it isn't all industry here, walking I stumbled upon the crushed bones and hoofs of a doe and was enchanted by the Jasmin smell in the lush greenery.
Then to Huntington, don't miss the visitor center, nice area, friendly service and follow that up with a Japanese meal and rest for the night planning the sights of tomorrow.
American towns aren't meant for walking; that is a pity.

Memorial Day

Memorial day is the when we remember all wars. We know about Arlington, but also Dayton, Ohio has a huge Military Cemetery starting at the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam and Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan and I may be forgetting one or other war like troops in former Yugoslavia... Seeing the flagged graves of all these people having been in a war, saddens me and strengthens my pacifism.

© sms:foto duisburg/rhein 2011

Here a Civil War Canon and  red white and blue streamers... These colors pervade everything. People walk along the the green grass in a solemn mood, bringing flowers, tokens of remembrance and caring.

Brothers and daughters, two children, about seven and eight at the grave where it says Cathy M. Soldier and other of two.
Memorial Day

A hot humid day in Dayton Ohio
row upon row
white stone after stone
bronze plaques
names and dates
rank and specific
war
engraved
scratched in souls
on stone
flag upon flag of endless ages
of flag after flag
the sad and sorrow price of
war -

By the way: war is not inevitable, it doesn't make us safer and humans are not naturally violent.
Peace takes more guts!