174

A, Varesano interviewing Joe Solkusky
- 2 -
6/28/72
Tape 16-1

048

AV: You don't use nails on the laggins, do you?

JS: No. Wedges is supposed to hole it. You cut, well, blocks of wood or else
boards, you know, and then you temper (sic) the one end down, like thin, you
know. And then you put it in under the laggin and hammer it in good and tight.
And that holds it in there. And then after when it gets its weight, you know, that you
can't knock them out no more. And it breaks, the timber, a lot of times. Oh,
yes. You have to renew them, you have to watch. Every now and then, that you
see that they're gettin' weight, when you're goin' up and down, carryin' things
up and goin' up there to work and all, you take a look at them, and
which one you see breaks, or crack the collar, you know--that's the one that
is holdin' all the things up-- well, you put another one in alongside of it, and
keep on that way, to keep it up.

AV: How long do these timbers last?

JS: Timbers? It all depends on what push they get. What weight comes on them.
Sometimes they'll last til you finish the hole comin' back, and sometimes you
have to be retimberin' 'em. Put new ones in, you know, to hold it. Yeah that
son of a gun.

AV: What kind of timber wood do you use?

JS: Like these trees, thick. Good and thick. Twelve inches thick and maybe
thicker. And we had to carry the, like, up these rock holes. And up these
ladders, up, away up, up there and put 'em in. That takes a lot of work.
They're pretty heavy, you have to put one, well, the way we put 'em in
there, about six feet high, you know. Well then, you have to take a six foot
piece, like that thick around, put it in on your back. And that's heavy. And you
go up them ladders, all the way up, and put 'em up there. Carry your.....
well, see, when you, in the rock hole, when you were drivin' that rock hole up,
you had the steps just like upstairs-goin', you know, all the way up.

AV: All the way up the pitch.

JS: All the way up that pitch. And sometimes three hundred feet and more, you
know. And then, you put props again, up, along your boardwalk, along your
steps. And you plank it up from there up to the top, you know, that no
coal can fall in when you're goin' up and down. Because it'd come down like
a bullet, it would kill you. So, you take and you put that up, all the way up to
the top, then , when you put the next prop in, you again put boards all the
way up, and plut 'em all the way up. So when you're comin' down, you're just
comin' down like a stairway. And that there is open, the rock hole is open,
where the coal comes back[?] There's a fellow down there in Buck Mountain
that he fell. He was workin' up above and he slipped some way, and fell down on
the pitch, you know, and he went down into the rock hole, and there wasn't a bit of
bone solid, you know. He hit down in below, he smashed to nothing. Yeah, he
fell down, he went down, oh, I guess about three hundred feet. He went down,
you know, I guess he was like a bullet when he lost his balance. And down he went.
Well, he didn't know what happened when he hit the bottom there. He knowed
when he was goin' down, but what, I guess he was all excited and tryin to get
ahold of something and he couldn't, he couldn't get ahold of nothin'. So
down he went. Oh, there's lot of 'em. Lot of 'em. You have to be goshdamn
careful. Because if you slip, and fall in that rock hole, you go down, that's
the last. No more.

AV: Did those stairs get slippery, too?

JS: Yeah. And . For the amount of money they pay, you'd think that,
like they used to say, you know, see, of course you can't blame the people, you
know. But it's these instigators, bluffin' them. They used to say, Oh,
the miners don't care to work. They make lots of money, so they want to take a risk[?]
See, sometimes when their contract will run out, well then, if they don't sign a new
contract, they can do what they want with you. They can put you a