February 6, 1993

Hi, This is Leah Williams here, how's it going at work and in life? I'm the one who went to be a VISTA for the Habitat for Humanity project down here in Eastern Kentucky, and I'm writing to tell you that I'm still alive.

It's a beautiful warm Saturday and I am supposed to be working, typing out this grant application. If I look at that thing one more time (the grant proposal), I'll lose my mind, so I've got to break. I'm here at the Habitat center, where I also live, me and one of the other VISTA volunteers share the apartment in the center. It is warmer outside than it is inside of this old building. We've got the coal stove stoked up real high but still it doesn't seem to be warming the place up. Life is good here, though a bit monotonous sometimes, but where wouldn't it be? I'm much happier here than I was in Bloomington, and I feel strong, both mind and body, so I can't complain. But this place is sure different from where I was before.

Actually, I would give anything at this moment, to be sitting outside, or in a bar listening to some loud rock-n-roll music, and drinking a lot of beer. This urge strikes me here more than it did before I came here. I think a lot of it has to do with Pike County (where Freeburn is) being a dry county. Plus, I think at this moment I am succumbing to pressures beyond my control; of being around the same people all the time; the two other VISTA people. The three of us rely on each other for all our social situations, and sometimes I feel all restrained. I guess I could go to West Virginia and buy some beer and drink it alone, but then, well it's hard to explain, it'd probably get around this very small place that I was a beer drinker, and a party mama, and I don't think I want to get into that. I feel like that Queen song, "I want to break Free".

Geez, I don't mean to make this place seem awful, because I am incredibly happy that I am here, and I love the mountains, and the people, and my job, but I am sure you can understand about the isolation.

Here, let me tell you about this place. Okay: The Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River is located right in my back yard, on the other side of the river is West Virginia. Train tracks surround my house, hauling coal away, at all hours of the day. Their screeching and whistles can instantly lull me into a daydream, I like to hear and watch them.

I am surrounded by coal; being hauled away by truck and train. I burn it, shovel it. It is all over me: my eyes, in my nose, and all over my hands. I could wash my hands 25 times a day and they would still never be clean. I am here because of coal, indirectly, and this area is in the state of poverty because of coal. I see it being blasted on top of and out of the hills. Being stripped off the mountain tops, I see lumps of it in the weirdest places.

A friend, Rusty, and I went to the old Emperor mines above Freeburn (Freeburn used to be a very prosperous little mining town, due to the Emperor mines, and then they shut down, along with other mines over the years. Now we have modern day Freeburn (which can look like a real down and out place.) It was a very steep hike up the side of the mountain. And there were the old entrances to some of the mines. They had been boarded up, but somebody had broken the entrances through again.

Embedded in the shale rock and in slices of coal were tons of fossils, it was unreal. There were several petrified trees still standing. Isn't that odd? You could feel the cool blasts of air come from out of the earth. Springs bubbling up from the ground. I guess if coal is going to be the ruin of this area, it is appropriate that it is something so ancient, that we cannot even comprehend how old it is.

The mountains are steep here, and close together. In fact, they are as close as the ears on my head. It's kinda claustrophobic. Sometimes I feel like I am in a hole because of it. I hike a lot. I have gotten in really good shape. Me and Hazel go up and down these hills everyday. It feels so good to get out of here. Sometimes it just gets to be too much, living where I work. So I flee the place and hike. It helps me get to know the land, too.

The other day, I hiked up to this old beech forest. I sat underneath an old gnarled beech with its steel gray skinny arms and fingers reaching to the sky. I looked out to the strip jobs on the other side of the mountain, and at the rocky cliffs, and Hazel running around with one of the neighborhood dogs. These are the mountains that my family lived with (not to get too hokey). Probably 10 or 11 generations (since 1760) of my mom's side of the family, the McKeehan's, lived and died here. My grandaddy was a miner, so were his sons/my uncles, his daddy was a miner, and some of my cousins are now. My granny married young and had 10 children, worked hard and had prophetic dreams, all in the embrace of these mountains. Probably in the later generations these mountains boxed some of my family in, they couldn't seem to get beyond the hills. Now I enter the mountain by choice. Life is weird.

I do like my job. And the people I work with are great. I feel privileged to be here amongst them, though I am still getting my feet wet. I had a bake sale that actually made a lot of money, plus I still got goodies that I am snacking on, though if I eat one more piece of peanut butter fudge, I might puke. Now I am trying to arrange a benefit concert for this summer. Looks fairly promising that Loretta Lynn might come and sing. If this goes through I wanna have a big community party, like a pig roast and such. Could be fun.

I hope all is well with you. I better get back to that damn grant proposal. Around dusk I am going to hike up to the top of the mountain and watch the full silvery moon rise and feel it's pressure on my head. Take care.