The swing on the porch.

/On the porch of this house where Kadizzle grew up there was a swing.  Many days were spent sitting on that swing watching the world go by.  When the sun would shine on that swing a guy who had just graduated from high school might be able to take a nice nap in the warm glow of the sun. Little did Kadizzle know that on that porch he would take a nap that would shape the rest of his life.

George Madison walked by one day just as Kadizzle was in a pleasant haze on the swing.  "Where are you going George?", Kadizzle inquired.   I am going down the river to the Ireland Mine to apply for a job was George's reply.  "Do you want to go?" he said.  With nothing to do Kadizzle joined George in his hunt for a job at a coal mine.

About thirty miles down the Ohio River Kadizzle stood outside the Ireland Mine office with about ten other people.  Some guy came out and said " All you guys come in here I got to give you a test".  Like a sheep I followed everyone in and sat down.   The person doing the hiring passed out some sort of intelligence test.  Everyone carefully filled out the answers on the timed test.  The guy said pass me all the test.  Kadizzle can still remember the exact words and what happened next.  Mr. hiring guy said as he put the test in neat order  " The company requires me to give you a test, I did",  he threw all the test in the wastebasket without even looking at them.  Next he announced " I told ten people to show up here, and there are eleven people here, someone is here who doesn't belong, who is it?".  Bashfully I raised my hand.  "Well" he said " You are all hired, including you",  as he looked at Kadizzle. 

This was the beginning of Kadizzles coal mining career.  Just about every young guy there had put on his application he wanted summer work.  Kadizzle thought the chances of getting hired would be better if you put on the application you wanted permanent work.  This turned out to be magic.  All the other poor guys ended up with shitty jobs cutting weeds and doing manual labor.  Kadizzle was trained to operate machinery.  At the end of summer with money in his pocket Kadizzle went to college.  The coal company said come back next summer we could sure use you to fill in for people on vacation.  Every summer Kadizzle worked underground and made his way through college.  The rest is coal mining history. 

That summer Kadizzle was on the first coal mining crew in history that ever mined through an old exploded coal mine to get to new coal.  The original mine blew up in 1913 and killed over one hundred miners.