The Nelsons

Pap:
Pap was a wiry man, slight of build but immensely strong. He owned two coal mines and mined them both all by himself, selling the coal each winter. My father went to work in coal mines in Woodland when he was only sixteen and by the time he was eighteen could outmine any of the other miners. One year, much later in life, Arnold asked father if he wanted to earn some extra money by working with him. Dad accepted. After a little over a week father proclaimed he had met his match, that Arnold could outmine any man alive. Arnold, at the same time, admired my father and said he was the first man he ever worked with who could almost keep up with him.

Arnold had made many friends by never letting a customer go cold in the winter. If they needed coal and weren't able to pay right away, he carried them or would take stock in trade. Consequently he had a lot of grateful customers who paid for their coal in chickens, eggs, canned goods, and various other wares.

Arnold was always fastidious and would shower and change from his coal mining work clothers in the cellar. Scrubbed cleaner than most people ever get, he would then go to the bathroom on the upper floor and bath again. Unless you caught him coming home from the mines you would never guess he was a coal miner. He was an absolutely spotless man. Everything he touched was that way. His car, an older model Plymouth, was the rave of the town. Everyone offered to buy it. Opening the hood the engine was so clean that you could have eaten a meal from it without getting a speck of dirt or grease on it. Shoot, grandfather wouldn't go to the corner store without a white shirt and tie.

He was simply an incredible man. One day he came home very late, considerably after dark. He was covred with more coal dust than anyone had ever seen on him. When asked what had happened he matter-of-factly said the mine had collapsed on him and it had taken him hours to slowly shift the coal that buried him alive. Other men have not survived to tell such stories.

Naomi:
I remember the living room where Grandmother Naomi Nelson taught me to walk. I remember how she held her hands out for me to come to her. I remember her long silvery- white tresses fashioned into a bun and the severe, serviceable, black laced shoes that adorned her feet. She usually wore a simple, nondescript, polka dot dress, often fashioned from a homemade pattern. No, nothing was special about grandmother's gilding. It was her aware azure eyes, twinkling with happiness, that lent radiance to her appearance. As it was her buoyant energy and animated demeanor that made her glow, an inner glow that outshone any adornment she could ever wear. Her face, lightly etched in character lines, seemed to always beam.

My first time machine was my grandmother Naomi's home. There was a foot-operated sewing machine, a well-used butter churn, a wood cook stove, an ice chest, quaint old books, hand knitted doilies on the furniture, a player piano with more than a few piano rolls, and all in near new condition. There was also Grandmother Naomi, a woman imbued with tradition, antiquity, and infused with the rich gentility of yesteryear. This was my window into a culture of proud and determined people, people who had helped build this country. I would often just sit and watch Naomi, and soak up the ambience from her home and from her person. The little nuances, the messages given off, were messages I appreciated and enjoyed. In my imagination I travelled with my grandmother into a time when women were gentle and loving, direct and honest, and I surrendered to those feelings in myself. In my heart I was beginning to acknowledge my womanhood. Just a glimmering, as yet, confused and obscure, but unequivocal.

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