 The previous issue of Mimosa
was sort of a transitional "Farewell to Tennessee" issue for us. We lived there for
15 years, and found that despite ourselves, roots are only too easy to put down. Many
of our most vivid memories and most of our connections to fandom originate in the
mid-South part of the United States, of which Tennessee is heartland. Although we're
not sure it was ever really 'home' to us, we know we'll miss it. This issue
was originally meant to be a "Welcome to Maryland" issue; we don't know if it'll
actually turn out that way, but in any event there are still some loose ends of our
Tennessee years to write about, and the following article is one of them. For the past eight years, Dick's job in fossil energy R&D quite frequently took him to a coal-fired power plant out in the wilds of rural Kentucky, where landscapes had been severely and immensely altered by strip mining long before land reclamation laws were ever thought of. Curiously, this station is somewhat paridoxically named 'The Paradise Power Plant'; a place farther from paradise would be hard to imagine. Dick likes to say that the place isn't the end of the world, but you can see it from there. Here is more about that place...
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Paradise
by Dick Lynch I remember the day well. It was a
warm late-summer day in 1980. I had recently taken an engineering position with a
large, government-owned utility company (the Tennessee Valley Authority), and this
was my first trip to the coal fields of western Kentucky. I had hopped a ride with
a fellow worker, and after a long drive we had stopped by this little greasy spoon
diner for lunch just outside the coal-fired Paradise Power Plant where we were
scheduled to be that afternoon. I was still pretty green to my new job at that
point; before TVA, I had worked as a process development engineer in a research
laboratory where the biggest concerns were keeping whatever hazardous chemicals you
were working with inside the fume hood, and making sure your monthly progress
reports got to the secretary on time. Not here, though. I had always wanted a job
that put me out in the field a little more, doing something a little more
interesting and with a little more practical applications than developing chemical
processes that nobody seemed interested in. Well, I had gotten my wish.The little car we'd requisitioned
from the TVA motor pool had been one of those no-frills Pintos that Ford had made in
the last year they were built. With hard hats, overnight bags, and equipment we
were bringing to the plant, it was a tight squeeze to fit just the two of us in
there. It kind of reminded me of the limerick about the Young Man from Boston /
Who Bought Himself an Austin; the car was a little bigger than that, but not by
much.This car was even more no-frills than
most, because it lacked basic human necessities like air conditioning and a radio.
The lack of air conditioning we managed to cope with; we just used the old stand-by:
two-fifty-five air conditioning -- two windows down at fifty-five miles an hour.
Having no radio, though, presented an inconvenience we couldn't overcome; even
conversation tends to peter out during a long, four-hour drive. There was one other
thing a radio could have provided us -- the news. Lots can happen in a four-hour
stretch when you're effectively cut-off from humanity. In this particular four-hour
stretch, something did happen that had we known about it, we would have
probably have turned the car around and headed directly back to Chattanooga.
Because there are some things in the world you just don't want to mess around with,
and one of them is a coal miners' strike.The United Mine Workers in recent
years seems to be losing some of the clout that it once had. Coal prices have been
on the decline worldwide for several years; mines have closed or curtailed their
work forces, and miners are moving on to different, less backbreaking, and safer
professions. They're no longer such a feisty lot, either; it takes a lot more
nowadays to enrage them as a group where organized action takes place. One of the
things that will set them off, though, is when a utility brings in coal
produced by non-union mines. TVA had done just that, and now there I was, right in
the middle of a wildcat strike that was just starting to get ugly.The little roadside diner was called
the Red Rooster; turned out that it was UMW Central, at least as far as this little
disturbance was concerned. Coal miners are usually depicted as big, dumb, hulking
brutes; these guys looked to be no exception. I was in favor of leaving right there
and then, but Bill, the fellow engineer I was traveling with, insisted that he was
hungry, and By God, he was going to have something to eat.We had just placed an order for
hamburgers, which looked to be the least disgusting thing on the menu, when Bill saw
two guys near the doorway, reading what a third guy had just tacked up on a bulletin
board. I'll say one thing for Bill -- cats have nothing on him in the curiosity
department. So before I could grab him to pull him back down in his chair, he
grabbed me by the arm and as he was pulling me over toward the bulletin board
said, "C'mon, Rich, let's go see what's going on."With a great sense of dread I
followed him, if only to be a little closer to the door. Bill, though, knew no fear.
The object of interest on the bulletin board turned out to be some newspaper
clipping that was sympathetic to the UMW, which had previously lodged complaints
about importing coal from non-union mines into an area where union miners were being
laid off. There was a big placard, in fact, right next to the clipping that read
"This Is a Union County." As Bill read the clipping, he started chuckling to
himself, undoubtedly about how unbiased local reporters and editors had become
lately. He didn't seem to realize that all the while, his antics were starting to
draw attention from some of the miners who heretofore had been pretty much minding
their own business. Finally, two of the bigger fellows seated not too far away put
down whatever delicacies they were eating, looked at each other, looked at us, then
started easing their chairs back from their table a bit, as if they were getting
ready to get up, come over, and check us out to see just what was so funny. It was
obviously time to take some drastic action, so I turned and gave them what I hoped
was my broadest, friendliest smile while talking to Bill out of the side of my
mouth: "Okay, Bill, let's get ou-u-u-t-ta he-e-e-re!"It was very soon indeed after that we
were back in the Millennium Pinto and headed for the plant. Bill groused a little
about not being able to eat his lunch, but didn't have an answer when I pointed out
that two big guys almost had us for lunch. As we approached the plant, signs
of labor unrest were more obvious -- groups of people, some carrying 'On Strike'
placards hanging around the plant entrance highway, a state police car or two
watching the situation, and a big coal-haul truck by the side of the highway without
a windshield (the cop said it had been shot out). Somewhere, about halfway down the
plant entrance highway, we decided we didn't really need to stay overnight in
the area, after all, so we just dropped off the equipment we had brought with us,
turned around, and headed for home. It wasn't until we had gotten all the way to
the county line that Bill laughed, turned to me and said, "Well, Richard, you've
just been to Paradise."And you know, we never did get
anything to eat that afternoon.# # # #
But wait! There's more...I had originally intended to end this
article here, but I find that I can't yet. I've lost count, but after that first
trip to the Paradise Power Plant, I must have returned there maybe a hundred times
more. And each time I returned, I found out there was something new and interesting
about the place I'd previously missed. There's lots more to tell about it. For
instance, there's how it got its name...Old-timers at the plant told me that
once, maybe thirty or forty years ago, this part of Kentucky was indeed a wonderful
place, with hills and valleys, beautiful forests everywhere, and the Green River as
a source of water and transportation. It was off the beaten path, and relatively
undisturbed. Right on the Green River there was a town named Paradise that had been
settled by the deliberate, slow-talking kind of people that still live in that neck
of the woods. There's still enough wilderness around there that I can imagine what
it must have been like; the original settlers must have thought they'd found their
equivalent of the Promised Land. Then, back when the nation was in a period where
new energy reserves were needed for the war effort and ensuing population explosion
afterward, some mining geologists from the Peabody Coal Company discovered there
were large coal reserves in that part of the state. So the coal company moved in
and bought up all the land, then moved everybody out, razed the town, and strip
mined the land for the coal. A songwriter named John Prine even wrote a song about
it:
Once, I was in the right place at the
right time to be invited to visit the world's largest shovel referred to above. It
was used to remove the 170-or-so feet of what is euphemistically called 'overburden'
so that the eight foot thick seam of coal could be mined. The result was one of the
largest holes in the ground I've ever seen. It was so large, in fact, that the
first time I went to the mine, I didn't grasp the scale of the place until I saw a
tiny section of rock at the lip of the mine fall lazily in slow motion to the
bottom. Only it wasn't really in slow motion; the depth of the mine and the
distance of the fall only made it seem so. Once the true perspective snapped in, I
could see little toy vehicles down on the floor of the mine that were actually
bulldozers the size of a bus.
The shovel itself had to be one of
the mechanized wonders of the world; it was taller than a 20-story building, as wide
as an eight-lane highway, and could remove 115 cubic yards in one scoop. One gulp
from that monster, and your whole front yard is gone. Another, and your house
disappears, too. When I got inside, I was astonished to find that it was controlled
by a single operator, located in a cupola about five stories up. When we got to the
'roof' of the cab, at about the ten-story level, it was like being on a ship in a
storm from the constant back-and-forth motion of the shovel while it continued to
remove dirt and rock. I was told that if I had been crazy enough to climb all the
way out to the end of the shovel boom, I would have experienced about one-and-a-half
gravity centrifugal force as the boom swung round.It was the mightiest machine -- the
largest self-powered mobile land machine ever built. And it doesn't exist any more.
About three years ago, the strip mine finally ran out of a usable coal supply, after
some 30 years of production. The big shovel was such a dinosaur that it was
cost-prohibitive to move it to another mine. So they just salvaged all the
electrical parts that were of any value, lowered the big boom one last time, and
covered the whole thing over when they filled in the pit. I can imagine that some
far-future paleontologist will think that metal monsters once roamed the earth, when
the metal bones of this behemoth are uncovered again someday.There was also an underground coal
mine in addition to the strip mine in the vicinity around Paradise; the place is
very rich with coal. And, with some trepidation, I and a couple of
co-workers took a trip down there. I don't think I could ever be a miner. I wasn't
particularly scared up on top of the big shovel; just awe-struck from its immense
scale. Down underground, I couldn't help wonder in that particular section of rock
ceiling was just about ready to come down, right on top of me. And the miners
seemed to take particular pains to point out parts of the ceiling where there had
been rock falls. I guess they found it an instant cure for visitor cockiness.
The trip down there was pretty
eventful in itself. I guess I had expected something safe and boring like an
elevator, or at least a walkway. Instead, we got the tram ride from Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom. I kid you not; there were enough twists and
turns, low ceilings, and stomach-churning drops to put any amusement park ride to
shame; they should have sold tickets for that thing. When we got down there, we found
that the depth of the coal seam being mined was only five feet. This meant that
six-foot people like me had to adopt to a new way of walking around -- like Groucho
Marx in Duck Soup, we grasped our hands behind our back, bent over forward
slightly with our chins jutting out, and did a sort-of bent-knee waddle. The only
things missing were bushy eyebrows, horn-rimmed glasses, and cigars. Dave, one of my
co-workers, later asked me if he looked as foolish down there as I did to him.And speaking of foolish, it always
seemed that whenever something bizarre or surreal happened while I was at Paradise,
Dave, Bill, or Dave and Bill were somehow also involved. Like the time we
were snowed in there one weekend. Dave was driving around a rental front-wheel
drive Toyota, and was surprised at how easily it got through even the deep, packed
snow that snowplows throw into the front of driveways. The car was making it look
so easy that Dave was losing all fear of getting stuck. So of course, we were.Bill was staying at a place a few
miles from our hotel, and we were to meet him for dinner, since his place had a
kitchenette and ours didn't. By the time we reached the parking area in front of
Bill's motel room, Dave was of the impression that there was nothing this
car couldn't do. I guess we should have been suspicious of the lack of tire tracks
in the white snowy expanse of the parking lot, but we weren't, and Dave blithely
pulled the car straight in. Or tried to, that is. We got within about 15 feet of
what looked to be the curb when the car suddenly sunk about six inches, followed by
a noisy crunching sound. And it wouldn't go any farther. When we got out, we
discovered that there was at least one thing that car couldn't do -- it couldn't
swim. The parking area turned out to have such poor drainage (Bill had forgotten
to tell us) that it wasn't unusual for several inches of water to accumulate.
Dave's car had just broken through the icy crust under the snow, and had sunk down
to where its bottom was flush against the ice. We had to wade through five-inch-deep
icy slush to make it to shore.
Getting the car free was just as
exciting. We wanted to call for a tow truck right then and there, but Dave wanted
to give it one good try to free it by muscle-power before we gave it up. So, with
much apprehension and fortified with three new pairs of tall rubber boots, we waded
out to the car to give it our best shot. Bill claimed the driver's spot, since he
had played no active part in getting us into this mess. Dave and I stationed
ourselves at the front of the car at each headlamp; we would do our best to push
the car out, while Bill kept a steady foot on the accelerator with the car in
reverse gear. It was probably one of the most hopeless plans we had ever come up
with, seeing as how the car was completely bottomed-out; yet it just might have
worked except for one thing we didn't know about.After being immersed in icy water in
sub-freezing temperature for an hour or so, the right front wheel -- the one I was
stationed in front of -- was frozen solid. All the engine's torque was going to the
other front wheel, where Dave was. The result was predictable: when Dave gave Bill
the signal to press down on the accelerator e-e-easy now, Bill naturally
stood on it with both feet. And as Dave bent his shoulder to the front of the car
in one last valiant attempt to push it free, all that torque applied to the one free
drive wheel spun it so fast that it shot a geyser of ice-cold water twenty feet in
the air.And Dave, poor Dave, was standing
right in the middle of it. It was quite a while before he in good humor again.# # # #
But wait! There's still
more...After eight years of working in the
area, the sights and sounds of the place don't want to go away very quickly. A
co-worker once told me as we passed the county line on the way home that one of the
greatest sights in the world was seeing the Muhlenberg County sign in your car's
rear-view mirror; the dirt and filth from coal mining and the obvious signs of
poverty in the area just tend to wear you down after a while. Even poverty itself
seemed to fit the paradoxical nature of the area; whole families lived in shacks so
run down and decrepit you'd feel guilty about keeping livestock in them, yet they
would have a satellite dish antenna in their yard and a bright new four-by-four
pickup truck in the driveway.There were the trips to little beer
and liquor package stores just across the county line (Muhlenberg County was dry) --
on one of them we had an Indian visitor with us; when we ran into what looked to be
a group of backwoods redneck woodsmen at a beer store I had a terrible sinking
feeling that one of them would say something about the visitor that would lead to a
complex series of events that could only end with someone beating the crap out of me
(luckily, they didn't). There was the Noah's Ark of hardware stores in a nearby
village, that had in its cluttered aisles just two of practically anything you might
ever need. There was a parade of all sorts of memorable characters, places, and
events. In fact, one reason why this article has been kicking around inside me for
about five years is that I couldn't decide what things were memorable enough to
write about.Like the Polish visitor we had not
long after the Solidarity union had been outlawed. He was here to learn about new
advances in coal technology; I hosted him for a day in Kentucky, then drove him back
to the TVA Office of Power headquarters in Chattanooga. He was outspoken about his
concerns for his family and friends, some of which were union supporters, but he was
still interested in the rolling hills of the countryside that were passing by in
front of him. Not far from the plant, we passed through the one remaining grove of
trees that somehow had escaped the strip mining from years before. It was where
part of the town once stood. I explained to him that here it was still possible to
see hawks hunting rodents, and even catch an occasional glimpse of a deer. He
turned to me in wonderment and asked, "What is this place called?"And I just smiled. "This place
here?" I said. "This is Paradise." All illustrations by Charlie Williams |
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