From the bank my uncle Emil and I watch the men working, the long boats pulling what steel they can downriver, the water rusty, slow as the steel. Ohio watches as we watch-- Follansbee, West Virginia, a gray street across a bridge: Market Street, a link between two states. Emil says the flaming steel drum around which the men stand warming their hands, cold and hard as brass, is called a salamander-- that the work is easier just knowing it is there. Sometimes we walk to the store and I listen as he tells me how it was, how the air was cleaner, how there were fewer mills, more work, how a friend named 88 is now a barber, how he plays piano when he isn't cutting hair, why my uncles Frank and Joe and Red Sperringer moved to Texas, why my cousin Billy drives a school bus and lives in a trailer in Wellsburg. Sometimes we sit on the bank watching the boats while Emil drinks whiskey, his fingers standing around the bottle warming their hands as he remembers how it was-- how the work was easier just knowing it was there.
Back to the CSUN home page.
Warren Wedin warren.wedin@csun.edu