Prior to my children starting college, I had never been on a mine tour. I operated the bus that drove the group to the nearby coal mine museum. My associate and I got to ride into the mine in addition to eating a picnic dinner on an antique train and exploring the museum. My grandfather used to talk about working in the mines when my grandmother was only six years old. They would set the dynamite that would bring down the coal and open current shafts while holding her feet as she dove into holes. When I imagined my six-year-old Grandpa being crammed into a space that was barely big enough for him, I nearly broke down in tears. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face because of how dark it was. Not only was it dark when my associate and I entered the mine, but the temperature dropped as we went deeper. The majority of the children had coats, but I didn’t. I had a mental image of my grandmother working through hunger, fear, and cold. Although they didn’t have heating systems back then, we were kept reasonably warm thanks to heating systems built into the walls. When my partner and I entered the mine, electric lights came on, but before that, there were no electric lights. My friend and I wouldn’t have the heating systems that helped keep us from shrieking in fear and fright without electricity. When they turned off the lights, I was on the verge of screaming, but the slight warmth from the heating systems helped to calm me down. For the little girl I imagined in the crawlspace who might have been my grandpa, there was no consolation.
The mine became eerily frigid as well as dark as my associate and I descended
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