Hills and Rocks and People
There was a little hill town surrounded by the old 'mountains' found on the edges of the Ozark Plateau. The mountains towered over all, surrounded all. We lived in their shadows. Approaching from a distance you could see the hills cradling the little village and its people. There was safety. There was family and love. There was home. Many towns are marked by their location on rivers of great consequence. Some were built where the rivers ceased to be navigable, fall-line cities that rose out of the wilderness to lift travelers up and over the cascades. There are cities defined by the sea, safe havens from the wind and wave, harbors for ships and sailors, for fishers whose crafts carved paths in the deep, seeking the ever elusive finned creations that Thoreau called 'animalized water.' But in this little village the story was not told by the height of the hills, nor by the tug and pull of pine and oak. The little city set in the hills was defined by rocks.
Rocks told the story of the place. Around the area were the massive upheavals of limestone, creating high bluffs that lined the little rivers that watered the land. The limestone, gray, unchanging, was reflected in the faces of the settlers who carved out a living in the shadows of the hills. There were wonderful areas of pink granite that created massive boulders, rounded by the slow sculpting of wind and water until they had, from a distance, the appearance of massive elephants. The granite was quarried by hand, the hands of hardy pioneers, who chiseled the rock from surface quarries. The rocks made streets and houses and buildings, many in the not too distant city named after Louis IX. River rock was rolled and smooth, carved by the sandy currents of the swift moving mountain streams. Even the broken glass left in the rivers soon became smooth of edge, and current artisans collect it as 'river glass.' But the tell tale rock was not visible at all. It was beneath the ground where, for a hundred years, miners had toiled in the endless dark -- save only for their carbide lamps -- to chip away the buried boulders until there was nothing left but massive caverns, the roof of which (called the 'back') was supported by pillars of rock, left by the mining process, supports for the limestone of the over-rock roof. At first mules were used to haul out the rock. Mules -- blinded by being forever in the dark, yet knowing every inch of the little paths over which they pulled little ore cars laden with the 'gold' of those mines. There were miles, hundreds of miles of underground passages that had yielded their treasure to the sturdy workers. They were the largest lead mines in the world. Not a few of us grew up drinking the underground water that had to be pumped out in order for the mines to be worked. The standing joke was that we all were raised on 'lead' water. Working around the clock in shifts the miners, upon entering the shafts, knew neither light of sun or stars. Time was not marked by passing shades of light and shadow. There was simply rock and water, darkness and backbreaking labor, and a willingness to earn the coveted dollar. A dollar a day was the wage, for loading nine one ton ore cars, which could then be pulled to the surface. Rocks told the story, beautiful rocks, dense rocks, rocks needed for what they grudgingly gave into the hands of industry.
Days and decades were spent in the mines. Hours and years were marked on the limestone walls with markings around eating areas, gathering places where the blinding dark was sprinkled with the little lights that miners wore, their only edge in a place where night rules. Have you ever been in a cave when all the tour lights were extinguished? Darkness that is palpable, not just the shimmering shades of surface nights. How could you ‘feel’ time in the ever-during dark?
Families were close. Values of loyalty and courage were held dear. Determination to survive bred generations of strong willed, strong bodied people who could dance in the dark on little walkways hung from the roof of the mine, and who could sing in the light reflected on the clear, fast rushing streams, that hurried through the everlasting hills. They are about gone now, but we remember and hold dear their lives and labor. May they not be forgotten. The hills will remember long after we are all gone.
Willard Spencer
