From the author: In days long gone and mostly forgotten, receiving a LUMP OF COAL in a Christmas stocking was considered a special blessing of warmth and prosperity during cold hard times. This true story of quiet grit features Ralph Carestia, who began going to the mine with his father at 7-years-old. As came to pass with each of the short true accounts of individuals of quiet grit [categorized under my term, "VISCERAL HISTORY," as defined and updated within this 2015 Kindle edition] this one took off on its own. In this case, the theme rooted into the professional life of Ralph Carestia, an owner-operator of 5 businesses based around the coal mining industry in Fremont County, Colorado. Ralph's businesses were in trucking, asphalt paving, a gravel pit, construction crew, and truck repair shop.
Only a bare edge of the surface of this history could be captured in a lengthy interview and follow-up phone conversations. For me, those hours passed in a descent of time into a reverence of "old time" values, as we sat at the warmly decorated dining table in the Carestia’s residence, a gracious, sturdy, clean ranch style home in a tidy neighborhood in Florence, with a park bench made by Ralph displayed pleasantly on the porch entry by the welcoming front door.
I was awed by the way the title of this story came in from Ralph, and provided the perfect ending.
The additional eight short works in this Kindle collection are connected by geography and coal mining. They are listed inside this book. Each story stands alone, yet each also works into the others, and into some of the themes and values developed in my novels and full length nonfiction books. It might seem strange that a far-fetched, science-fiction-fantasy could be connected to true stories told from current (or fairly recent; events within a century or two can bee seen as recent history) cultural situations. The link has to do with History, as a concept as well as a long-term reality.
With respect for the rich lives of working people and the history they collected,
Linda Shelnutt
Only a bare edge of the surface of this history could be captured in a lengthy interview and follow-up phone conversations. For me, those hours passed in a descent of time into a reverence of "old time" values, as we sat at the warmly decorated dining table in the Carestia’s residence, a gracious, sturdy, clean ranch style home in a tidy neighborhood in Florence, with a park bench made by Ralph displayed pleasantly on the porch entry by the welcoming front door.
I was awed by the way the title of this story came in from Ralph, and provided the perfect ending.
The additional eight short works in this Kindle collection are connected by geography and coal mining. They are listed inside this book. Each story stands alone, yet each also works into the others, and into some of the themes and values developed in my novels and full length nonfiction books. It might seem strange that a far-fetched, science-fiction-fantasy could be connected to true stories told from current (or fairly recent; events within a century or two can bee seen as recent history) cultural situations. The link has to do with History, as a concept as well as a long-term reality.
With respect for the rich lives of working people and the history they collected,
Linda Shelnutt
