Every coal miner knows that that's the very last resort, to barricade yourself somewhere. You don't want to do that unless everything else fails.

They are closing the mine in two weeks, they say. Six days a week bumping down in the gondola, pecking out the rocks and hauling them back up, doing it again the next day for twenty-seven years, one cave-in, three thin raises, and a failed strike. Where am I going to go every day, what am I going to do with all that sunshine?

And I said, 'A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could've had you?' And he said, 'Because when he sings ... even the birds stop to listen.

We've come a long, long way. We haven't killed a coal miner in a state of Illinois coal mine for two consecutive years.

Coal mining is an industry rife with mismanagement, corruption, greed and an almost blatant disregard for the safety, health and quality of life of its work force. Everyone knows this. Everyone has always known it.

I come from a coal-mining, working-class background. My father was a coal miner.