boy did that take me back to my childhood..
spending summers going between the mine and the cabin up in Timmins. Watching the miners with their hard hats with the flashlights on them...they'd be walking up the road to the canteen for a beer after work or coming to my grandparents to pick up laundry as they headed to the bunkhouse. i saw the dirt on their clothes atfter their shift but when my grandmother was done with them in the old wringer washer they were perfectly clean again.
sitting and watching my grandfather roll his cigarettes for the next day and helping him pack his lunch box with his thermos and sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. being quiet when he came home because he'd have a nap while supper was being prepared and quiet again because the CBC news was on and he didn't know how to read or write so this was how he learned about the world. he'd been working at the mines since before he was a teen after leaving nova scotia.
I don't remember seeing my granmother ever sit much...maybe to play cribbage once in a while. She worked as hard as he did...and none of their sons became miners...nor did their daughters marry miners. Both of my grandfathers were miners - hardworking labourers doing a dirty job in dangerous conditions. As kids we never saw how dangerous it was when we'd ride down the elevator so far underground and sit in the buckets riding the rails past the dynamite holes dotting the walls.
This song has always been a fave of mine for several reasons and another was added after hearing Jory Nash put his stamp of excellence on it.
Thanks for the images....bittersweet memories on a cold Toronto morning....
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