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"Muscle and blood, skin and bones," sang Merle Travis mournfully
of the mining life, a "mind that's weak and a back that's
strong." Yet despite the rigors of the bituminous coal miner's
profession, aged veterans from the hand-loading era remember
their work with a curious affection. The special relationship
between man and mineral defined the parameters of the mining
life. Although coal mining in southern West Virginia was dark,
dirty, and dangerous work, something about it appealed to many a
hardworking coal loader. Before the widespread introduction of
sophisticated underground machines into the process around World
War II, coal mining was a highly labor-intensive industry.
Thousands of workers laboriously extracted the mineral from the
unwilling earth. Yet the desolate