Atonement for Walker County

Every morning long before sunup, legions of black-handed, thick-necked men rise. They dress in flannel shirts or overalls, pump up tall steel thermoses, grab their hardhats, and head to their jobs, inside the earth.When the Good Lord plumbed a place to house His coal, He decided to entrust a large stockpile of it in the foothills of the Appalachians, where I live. Coal and the extracting of it from those hills has put food on many tables of Walker County residents, connected daddies and sons. Indeed the hardscrabble life that comes as an accompaniment to the coal industry has largely defined us.Tobey Eads operates a dragline, “above ground” to you.“Been running a dragline now for 15 years. Have tore my ole gal down and moved her three times. Know every bolt, every nut, every screw. I work 7 to 12-hour shifts every week and have for a long time. The operation of a dragline is basic: hoist lever in right hand to control the up and down of the bucket, drag lever in left hand to control the in and out of the bucket, swing pedals with your feet. Good operators make it all look as poetry in motion,” says Eads.The lives of coal miners are foamed with Lava soap and GoJo. They are wage workers who wear steel-toed boots. Many men, like Eads, dream about these jobs as a boy, as others might dream of baseball. Other boys dream, like their Walker County forefathers, of being doctors and lawyers, politicians even. If coal mining built Walker County, these people furnished the mortar.Perhaps as you’re reading this, you hold some preconceived notions about Walker County. You may think we’re a rough-and-tumble, hardnosed lot. And we are.There’s an urban legend you’ve probably heard that claims if you want to find a hitman, come to Walker County. You may have even heard about the horrific detonation of a man on his lawnmower, a few years back. But of course, that was before Casey hit Dago in the head with a 2-by-4, over at Barney Beach, a “satellite” of Cordova. And then there’s the time when our State Senator, Charles Bishop, slugged Lowell Barron inside the capitol during a legislative session for offending his mama. And let’s not forget the dozens (hundreds?) of Charity Bingo parlors that once lit up Highway 78 like tiki torches.People often say to me when I tell them where I live that “You don’t seem like you’re from Walker County,” as if Walker Countians are haplessly wedged somewhere between civilized society and Middle Earth, a peg above Homo erectus on the graph from ape to human.But Walker County is much, much more than a few “coalmining rednecks” hauling up buffet suppers at Ryan’s.I have learned that this patch of earth holds some of the most caring, considerate, and faithful people in the world. Walker Countians will out-work you, out-fight you, and out-pray you. What coal hardened on the exterior, the Gospel softened on the interior.I have a friend that is a retired fighter. He was a three-time Walker County “Tough Man” Heavyweight winner, and his balled fists are as big as cinder blocks. But caverned in this blocky, six-foot-five, 300-pound Mount St. Helens of a man lives a velveteen soul that can only be wobbled to the canvas by songs reflecting on the “Stranger of Galilee.”Here, women still wear their hair in cinnamon roll buns and wear shin-low dresses; their Pentecostal husbands in polyester pants and shirt sleeves. Their sons (and sometimes daughters) go by nicknames instead of their Christian names. They are country, salt-of-the-earth people. Yet, there are people driving around Walker County in old Toyotas that could probably pay cash for a yacht and feel like a piece of lint just left their hands. There is money here; in ways, an aristocracy.But mostly, if you’re looking for a Manhattan-type lifestyle, you won’t find it here in Walker County. It’s not the sexiest or most eclectic place in the world. There aren’t a lot of yuppies swirling glasses at wine tastings saying “dahling.” You may not be able to catch the elevated train to work, ride to the top of a skyscraper and look out at a sprawling city for miles and miles, sit in the stands at a Major League baseball game with a kraut dog and a Miller Lite, peer at Rembrandts on loan to the local museum, or attend an off-Broadway play at an ornate theater, but we’ve got something more precious than things to do.We’ve got people.Yes, the very best there is. The kind that bring Reynolds Wrap-covered casseroles to your house when a loved one dies. The kind that kneel with you at the altar. The kind that need no hymnal for any of the three stanzas of Blessed Assurance. The kind that invite you into their homes, for a meal that looks like something prepared for a sheik or monarch. The kind that make you feel welcome.The world can be a cruel place. You can get lost in it. I have lived in places that I literally felt like no one else could care if I was there or not. I don’t feel this way in Walker County. I feel like I am an integral part of something. That my opinion matters. That my life matters.I am a photographer. My business takes me to all nooks of this county, and I can say with assurance that Walker County is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. When the Deep South of our fathers and grandfathers fades, the last of it will peter out in the hills and hollers of Walker County. But it still sings in the old decrepit purple and blue buildings, the corroding 76 gas station sign, the rotting, weed strangled ruins of an old local bank or department store, the shotgunned-out windows and the graffiti-sprayed stone tunnels. I hope that kind of South never fades away, these last vestiges.Yet, hope for a new tomorrow in Walker County does not rest in them. Walker County’s most lucrative industry, coal, is now being threatened by alternative forms of energy.So where is hope?Many people in this area are waiting on the harvest season for Corridor X, the Interstate that ties Birmingham to Memphis. Rumors of Full Moon Barbeque and Cracker Barrel have outgrown whispers, but Walker County has yet to smell those sweet spiraling aromas.And so, we continue to sit with our feet dangling off of the precipice of something truly extraordinary. Resources, both natural and human, provide a tremendous infrastructure for success, but Walker County will remain in a holding pattern until forward-thinking people determine its merit.It will be an effort, but I know that our people will answer the bell.Here in Walker County, we house all walks of life. We work, play, and compete shoulder to shoulder with one another. Because we experience diversity every day, we are skilled in the art of people. It is no wonder the success that our people have had, all across the globe. It is no wonder that Walker County constructs large personalities that would make Goober Lindsey envious.It’s mighty hard to blot out a bad reputation. Believe me, I’ve had such ink spots in my own life. It takes a friend standing up for you, a friend that believes in you, knows you.I have lived in Walker County for the majority of my life, and it has taken me a while to fully appreciate its true nature. Around Alabama, Walker County may not have the best reputation. But as a resident, fully inculcated and in a position to better understand its beats and thrums, I can say with confidence that Walker County is indeed a great place to live.The truth is Walker County has paid for its sins for far too long. I hope that today will be a day of atonement, of reclamation. It’s time to start giving Walker County a new name, because when you start mining for the truth, the real truth about Walker County, you will find that urban legend dies largely in myth.The Real Walker County has no black sediment interlarded at its core, no black rock. Its essence is diamond-bright. It sparkles in the night like iridescent crystals or precious gems, only these gems come in the form of people.I hope that one day the good people of Walker County will rise up before the clouds spread like runaway cotton across the pink and purple sky and know what it feels like to have a good name. They surely deserve it.Besides, I’ve never even met a hitman.