michaelboy

There are those that may have had a brief presence in our lives but stick in memory more than expected. I worked at North American Coal Company's Powhatan No. 6 mine many years ago, and there were several very memorable characters on my shift.

One fellow, forever staged workplace injuries to get out of work. I once watched him purposely and carefully back up with a wheelbarrow into a diagonal I-beam at the preparation plant and then fall carefully to the ground.

Two rockdusters I knew (Bud and Mike), made a regular practice of sleeping on the job. They used an old 5-ton rail-mounted GE trackmotor to pull the pod dusters around the mine. But rather than doing much dusting, they'd usually pull up into a set of entries, apply the brake and then set the drive control on first point (which is kind of like putting an idling car in drive with the brake applied). This would cause the motor to heat. They would then sleep a few hours of each shift on the top of the warm motor.

Charles Pelkey was a farmer that once drove a taxi and a raw milk truck but turned to coal mining as many farmers in the area at the time did. Everyone simply called him "Pelkey". He was a hard-working pleasant guy who had a great smile and an endearing sense of humor. I believe many of his co-workers admired his life attitude but as many coal miners might, they'd never dare to admit it. I remember that he always chewed Happy Jim chewing tobacco because "it wasn't as sweet as Mail Pouch, Red Man, or Levi Garrett".

Out of many, he was one of a few successful coworkers that I'll always remember from No. 6.