My memory still lingers on the rainy, dreary night when my grandfather sat by a flickering fire telling about his narrow escape from death. Years have passed and he died an old man, but his brief experience with near-death haunts me. In his early years, my grandfather was a coal miner. Living in the South during the 20s and working in the mines was a grueling, distressing existence. They did what they called drift mining. The mines were entered at a level angle due to the many sloping hills surrounding the mining site. But the mine shaft led to deeper, darker caverns of narrow corridors. Being confined in such an oppressing environment seemed the worst aspect of the job to my grandfather. So each day at lunch break he would quietly slip from the suffocation of stale, acrid air and sit outside the mine entrance.
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