Coal Valley Silk

By Lynelle Woods Graham

Coal Valley Silk is based on true events characterizing a young boy growing up in the productive coal-mining town of Coal Valley, Alabama. He bares for a lifetime the undue reproach for his family’s biased and schismatic genealogy, and also imparts the means by which the brilliant youngster works out his own salvation through agonizing years following life’s poisonous inflections. Historical facts confirm the mining town Coal Valley’s bye-gone era that now is oblivious to present day generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781645753179

Lynelle Woods Graham

Lynelle Woods Graham has experienced the best of both worlds–country and city living. Her unique style of building literary figures is the outgrowth of her enjoyment of people watching. Currently living in a small southern town, Oakman, Alabama, Graham is appreciative of a large circle of friends. Her loving and supportive family are the wind beneath her wings. Vintage tales and southern history are to the author sweet as the sudden appearance of an April rainbow.

Book preview

Blake

Who Is a Writer

A writer is a dreamer

Who seeks to share her dreams

She is a bank of knowledge

A rolling river stream of information

Writhing to escape from its buried dome

Just put a pen within her hand

’Twill make her feel at home

The things she brings back from the past

Might not have been thought for years

They might bring hefty laughter

Or lonely burning tears

A writer is one who paints sweet pictures

With her words

Of rolling hills or sloping lands

Of animals or birds

Of love affairs that are long gone by

And long kept hidden woes

A writer can when her words command

Bring tingling to your toes

She gives gifts to those who are yet unborn

In such a lovely fashion

The words then strewn across the page

They’re from her heart, her passion

Oh, ’tis good to take a look

And relax for just one hour

And become lost without much cost

Within a writer’s power

You’ll bask within her soulful words

Whether she gives you country or city, because

The writer commands her words

And sits them down so pretty

I have a friend who is such a one

I love her oh so much

A writer she is, I know she is

Because she’s got the touch

By Jean Karrh Odom

Chapter I

While crossing over a monumental mountain of time, a recently widowed lady, having been kept in total darkness regarding the true identity of the man she married in days long gone by now, pursues the light of truth. Aware of the many secrets that lay smoldering on the other side of the mountain, the gold-aged widow began in confidence the upward climb.

First she dug her heels deep into the firm soil of sincere grit, down, down into the mountains table where there would be no fear of neither slipping nor sliding either this way or that way, assuring solid footage to this million-dollar entourage.

The widow, being well-equipped with the common knowledge that our modern day society now views those over the age of eighty to be ancient, realizes that she herself despite her resentment of their vexing outlook toward the aging, also falls among those short on time; and so with pioneering moments being removed daily, many opportunities to gather in the rye seed grain of the past are swept away, and so the anxious widow presses onward in a most deliberate determination, ’ere too soon the sun goes down.

During the insurgent scale of the widow’s imposed mountain, many obstacles of doubt, fear, and passionate respect for those deceased loved ones come up before her as a beloved memorial yet unchanged, a mint protected. The encumbrances stay uncomfortably heavy at her feet, a needling weave stitching an anchor to the heart, a chain of force pulling backwards.

And so once the tried and true widow’s feet were planted firm upon the mountain top, she paused for a brief moment to claim for herself a much-deserved refreshing breath of air; breathing first in then out great swirls of unapproved hesitation.

At once she asked of herself, Is this really a wise endeavor? Will the garner of buried secrets fill the pot with gold at the rainbow’s end? Will there be found wealth or fame enough to warrant such an uncertain mission or is there a crushing blow to my soul lurking inside the vessels’ hollow in wait to howl, Glory! Glory! Such thoughts once considered, the weary widow prepared for her defeat an about face; but at that precise instant, a distant glance deterred the cowardly agreement.

Beautiful stone up ahead and underfoot as well, shined so brightly that the darkness felt within her heart immediately faded away to forgetfulness. In disbelief this time, the widow opened up the windows to her soul and looked again, but the repeated draw moved with a composed comprehensiveness.

She observed in amazement the lovely but frightening pathway that stretched out before her—long and rambling, seemingly untouchable yet pleading to be handled—slurped too closely at her fingertips.

This intriguing lay of stone was sure to be the pathway that most assuredly would lead the brave widow at last into the lake of well-kept secrets that for far too long had tugged at her heart strings.

The outstretched pavement stacked a seducing chain of gold stone, silver stone, bronze, copper and stone formed of brass. Some were even formations made of straw, wood, and clay.

Currently the stone to which the widow’s foot clings is one molded of pure gold, or so it seemed. This special stone had been molded long, long ago to its present-day sheen while enclosed within the walls of a small rural church building located in the southern community of Walker County, Alabama, called Enon.

The white frame structure was owned and sustained by the Enon Community Christians. The memorable event took place the year 1952 on the coldest day in the February or any other winter month as far as that goes-late evening of the third day.

Reflection from this magnificent stone (as the saying goes) ‘lit a fire’ under the widow’s cooling down feet and rekindled the previous bravery.

And so the fine lady’s arrival face to face with the defiant warning of KEEP OUT, once painted in a wicked black, has now cleaned up to a more tolerable appearance and has for over a period of fifty-six years held the patient widow at bay.

No more, said she, today is the day that your snarling bluff shall surely be silenced. It’s time, old foe, for you to tumble and how great will be your fall.

At once the refreshed widow sharpened her wits, forced open the posted warning to KEEP OUT from its common place center to the gates of her humble heart’s closure and forcefully cast it aside. At that moment, the gate fencing her entrance to the forthcoming journey swung outward. Inside her chest a dancing heart refused to sit this one out, already the dance had begun. Tears ran as if they were a river of diamonds and gilded the happy face of the aging widow. Right away, a bit bewildered but joyful, she moved on from the stone of purest gold, stepped through the open gateway then placed confident feet upon the next stone in line.

Thence its placement which towered over all others, she could see more clearly to the journey’s end. There were yet more stone. Some beautiful like diamonds spread in harmony with the one of purest gold.

However, further down life’s unpredictable footpath, the widow’s eyes swept over what seemed to be many more golden gems; but over time she, like many more of her own standing, had learned the hard way that not all that glitters is gold. The charming glitter that so mischievously drew her attention were stone sprinkled fat with the deceiver’s gold known as fool’s gold that lay half covered beneath layers and layers of escaped time.

Those stone were among the ones that she most balked at in dread of researching. These stones represented the widow’s most unwanted memories that stick hard and fast to the heart as if they are winter moss that grow on the north side of an oak tree, sure and steadfast. Quickly and never pausing once, she passed over a dry swamp of these deceivers which immediately brought her to a swift confrontation with the long yearned for lake of hidden secrets. The widow moved in closer toe to toe with the pool’s edge as if it were a draw of quicksand. At that enthralling moment, she gave no consideration to the world around her.

Here and now it mattered none if the sky proved frigid or mid-day warm, nor if the busy wind whispered through the boughs of the trees or if its stir simply hung at ease high above their willowy sway.

The lovely chorus sung by a merry chickadee somewhere near beneath the underbrush escaped her attention and the boisterous croak of a baritone bullfrog underfoot evaded even the slightest notation.

The enthusiastic lady was swallowed up bone and marrow into the oblivious world of the true reality and into the safety of all its fascinating promises.

Straightaway while putting much caution into the move, the widow leaned over the edge and gazed down into the crystalized face of the deep.

The weathered reflection that gazed back at her was in no way disturbing or shameful. The mirrored image was neither barren or washed-out bones in ruin but rather a fair lady full of life having still a healthy body, strong and energetic and a seasonal spring. Her pleasant eyes peered upward, bright and cheerful, and her lips were rosy with a peppermint taste for life. A once youthful skin wrinkled somewhat but did not furrow or pucker. The widow’s small shoulders were straight and unrounded, although her years weighed heavy, but alas it was an observation of the hair that drew a tear. All the gold, every last thread of it had faded away and a pure platinum had taken its stead.

Reflection of the cropped yet stylish hair appeared whiter than the white of a mad January frost that spreads total death to vegetation over the Alabama fields and valleys then lays them out for the final viewing just like a winter corpse.

Once the escaped teardrop reached its destination, the wake enforced by its tumble sent out a slow sequence of soft rolling ripples. One followed by another uniform in peace, flowed gently across the stilled silence as it reached for the outer banks of the napping pool. At once when the leading ripples broke against the distant shore, the widow’s ears filled with the ring of a school bell.

The bell’s shocking peel immediately stamped upon the widow’s mind an honorably discharged Marine, a frivolous girl of sixteen and those long-ago high school days of 1945; and of remarkable people, places and things that continue to spin with the sweet revolution of time.

The taunting bell rising to the current consideration is the electrically-powered bell that had been bolted and screwed securely to the very high rising masonry wall near the entrance and immediately inside the south corridor of the yellow brick school house which housed approximately five hundred Oakman High School students.

The respective school building, which was built in the early thirties, stood at the north end of the small town of Oakman, Alabama, in Walker County. The prestigious educational fort seemed at first sight to be much smaller than its actual structural sweep but was constant in its supreme reign of unique charm, sparkle, and glory. Oakman High claimed the honor of being the proud Podunk’s underlying pulse and rightfully so. The school’s accomplished football team, soul contributor to the small humbled town’s social flow, drew both inner city and those citizens of the distant outskirts together in a boastful sodality. Again at the proper time of the day, down to the exact hour, minutes and seconds, the reliable old school bell rang with a strict purpose—perforating the students’ ears just as it was intended to do: awaken the sleeping, the indifferent, and most importantly to free anxious Knelda Wolf from the mad rottenness of another frustrating biology class.

This specific class was made tedious and drab day in and day out by the class clown, Don