
Rebecca Gayle Howell (ed.)
et al.
Published online:
18 May 2023
Published in print:
07 March 2023
Online ISBN:
9780813197418
Print ISBN:
9780813182438
Contents
Cite
Van Gundy, Doug, 'Lucky', in Rebecca Gayle Howell, Ashley M. Jones, and Emily J. Jalloul (eds), What Things Cost: an anthology for the people (Lexington, KY , 2023; online edn, Kentucky Scholarship Online, 18 May 2023), https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813182438.003.0105, accessed 14 May 2025.
Extract
My people crawled up from underground, birthedinto the failing sun of West Virginia and westernPennsylvania six days a week, eyes blinking, even in dimwinter, adjusting to a light brighter than the one still burningon their own forehead. Every home in every little townwalking distance from work, every white frame house facingan undulating brick street, each household centeredon the mine or the mill: coal and glass, coal and steel, coalshoveled into the furnace, loaded into the stove, groundinto the knees and elbows of sweat-stained work clothes, everythingunderlaid by that prehistoric heat. My people came from coal-country Scotland, trading the pit for the deep mine, that monoculturefor this melting pot, one back-breaking job for anotherthat was exactly the same. Sometimes somebody died. Sometimesa broken back or snapped femur was called lucky. Saturday nightsthey went dancing at the Moose or Elks. Sundays they were starchedPresbyterians, skin scrubbed bathtub pink. Monday morning,they were back in the earth before daybreak, the luckyamong them resurrected in time for supper.
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