Blue-collar blues.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Up Front

He was not old, though you'd have thought so, the way he tilted to the side on which he carried his oxygen bottle. I stood at the counter of a tire store in Beckley, W.Va., waiting to get a flat fixed. Coal dust takes its toll, and over the years, here on vacation, I'd seen his kind before. From a comfortable distance, I'd thought: What a miserable way to make a living.

He walked over, and the tube in his nose made it hard to tell if he was smiling. When he stuck out his hand and spoke, I knew he was. "You from here?" I shook my head. "I'm a miner," he said in a wheezy voice. "Forty years. A good one. Had to quit. You know what?" I shook my head again. "I miss it. Know what? I'd go back, too, if they'd let me. I was a good one."

Memories of the miner and of Harry Truman have been bothering me lately. Among my other duties with the magazine, I report the western North Carolina news briefs--part of what we call the Regional Report--and I noticed the first plant shutdown of the month a few days into January. Then another and another. Steelcase, the maker of office furniture in Fletcher, 480 jobs. Cooper Bussman, which made electrical fuses in Black Mountain, 290 workers. A furniture maker in Marion, 400 jobs gone. A paper plant in Canton, 100. Then an apparel plant in Bakersville, 125 jobs.

That one in particular made me think of the miner and what work means to people. When I came to North Carolina 30 years ago, I pitied textile workers. I'm not proud of it: I looked down on them. What a miserable way to make a living. Then I met more and more of them. Pity turned to admiration. In the mills, like the mine, worth is relative. Who's to say a good weaver isn't worth more than a bad president? I'm a doffer, a dye man. A good one. Proud...