Lifeblood of the region through the lens of a bicycle

Today, we'll say our goodbyes to Hwy 119. We have been on this road since shortly after we crossed into Kentucky from Tennessee, over 150 miles. It's a new road, mostly four lanes, and has the feel of an interstate. It's really the only road that heads in the direction that we want to go, and because its new and updated, we can travel a bit faster. The down side is that we bypass the local towns and don't see and experience as much culture. It also doesn't follow the rivers and streams like most other roads in this region, which means that it's a constant struggle of climbing hills and then screaming down the other side at 35 mph. We are getting stronger each day and our confidence has grown to the point that we know we can climb any hill. Yesterday, we traveled 60 miles up and down some monsters and are now in Williamson, WV, another old coal mining town. The entire area is recovering from devastating flash floods about 8 days ago. One town, Belfry, Kentucky, was nearly underwater and we could see the high water mark on surrounding buildings. The local junior high school there is 70 years old and locals told us that it was the first time it had ever taken water.
Today, we're heading northeast to Logan, WV. In the 1920s, after the murder of Mayor Hatfield in Matewan, 10,000 miners marched to Blair Mtn., where they met about 2000 heavily armed deputies and private guards. The battle lasted for days and was the largest battle fought in the US since the Civil War. The miners were stopped there and their organizing efforts came to an end. Although the United Mine Workers finally organized the mines in this region in the 1930s, today they are non-union. In Harlan, some old UMW miners there told us that the companies today purposely pay more than the UMW miners make. The strategy is to keep the young miners from organizing. They work at least 60 hour weeks, however, and the other catch is that as soon as they stop working, they lose all health benefits. This means that when these young miners try to retire, many with black lung, they will be simply cut adrift. According to Clark Williams, a veteran of the 1970s organizing wars in the Brookside region-made famous by the film Harlan County, USA-the "company has these young guys brainwashed."
The greatest joy of bicycle touring is meeting local people, watching them go through the struggle of their everyday lives, and glimpsing the dignity that each of them represents. Two people in this trip stand out more than anyone else: Barbara Church and Jim Webb. Barbara runs the Oven Fork (Ky) Mercantile store which doubles as a bed and breakfast for those fortunate enough to find themselves stranded in the area. Barbara collects antiques and over the years has built this old store, which used to be the Oven Fork post office, adding one room after another and filling each one with the remnants of the ghosts of this beautiful valley. According to her son Damon, the Cherokee call the valley the "voice of the spirits." Barbara's store is literally full of voices: paintings, antiques, quilts, old furniture, photographs, everthing you can imagine played a role in everyday life of people living in this isolated valley between Kentucky's two largest mountains over the past century.
After escaping the rain and descending darkness, Gabriela and I stumbled into Barbara's store. Within ten minutes, we were on the back porch with her friend Eugene and her son Damon drinking beer and sharing stories. For three hours, we told tales. The crickets provided our background music and the lightning bugs our landscape as Barbara, Eugene, and Damon brought the valley to life for us. In the 70s a terrible mining accident happened just down the road at the Scotia mine. Several men were trapped inside after an explosion and when rescuers tried to save them another explosion happened. A dozen or more men were killed and their remains still lie in that sealed mine. Barbara has painted a picture of the tipple at Scotia mine, it hangs in the old post office. I will carry the energy of this place in the miles to come.
Before we left Barbara, Eugene, and Damon told us that we must visit their friend Jim at the top of the mountain. They said we'd recognize the place by the pink flamingos. The climb up Pine mtn. nearly killed us, 3.5 miles of steep climbing. We stopped twice to rest, but made it in about 30 minutes. When we saw the flamingos, we knew we had arrived in paradise. Jim Webb and his wife live on the mountaintop, with their log cabin next to a sizeable lake, nestled in the woods. Jim's great grandparents built two log cabins here in the 1820s and Jim showed them to us. Jim is a poet, a teacher, an environmentalist, and an activist against the coal powers that be. He used to teach at a community college in Williamson, but was forced out after conservative students complained about him. He introduced us to Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. Bumper stickers adorn his every structure: "Filthy Coal" "Hippies shower here"
After a dip in the lake, we gathered our things to leave. Jim give us a cd collection of coal miner folk music and a book of local poetry. He has had three fires on his property over the last ten years or so and said that after most of his writings were burned, he has just about given up on writing. Jim refers to Barbara as "one tough woman," and shared with us that her first husband was killed in the mines, forcing her to become self sufficient. We blew out a tire as we screamed down Pine mtn. toward Whitesburg, arriving in Whitesburg with gear issues and a wobbly wheel. Nonetheless, we were so much richer having met Barbara and Jim, the lifeblood of this region, only viewed through the lens of a bicycle.