by Fred Moleck
Given a Good Thing
The Cuecreek miners have fired their lawyer and taken on a new one. It seems that the former attorney sold them lock, stock, and barrel to the Disney Empire. I don't remember the ramifications, but it was a lifetime bondage starting with their births.
Somehow they got out of that misconstrued deal and are now in pursuit of some endorsements. You can't fault them. They did not return to coal mining and they, as well as their families, must eat.
It now appears that the post-resurrectional glow is dimming and brutal reality is setting in. The circus is in town-the town being Somerset, Pennsylvania, and the circus is the motion picture company auditioning locals for crowd scenes.
On September 15, the auditions were for speaking parts and only genuine, bona-fide coal miners could apply. I am burning with curiosity to discover just who showed up.
The Cuecreek Nine didn't. They were busy giving witness and testimony at the opening of the Steelers-Raiders game in Pittsburgh's Heinz Stadium.
That's OK, too. They should receive international recognition, if it's only to show that there is hope in the world and the human condition can endure and conquer.
So far, no one has developed a strategy and plan to give some accolades to the team who handled the rescue effort. These people were the real brains and muscle behind the heroic rescue.
It was their expertise which drilled and plunged and pulled out nine humans who could have been at death's door, but escaped with God's help and a lot of brave and smart people.
In summary, the rescue event gave the world something and someone to marvel at and to rejoice as one people.
There are some embarrassments, though.
The latest one is Miss Pennsylvania's vesture for the Miss America contest. She is to appear in a miner's helmet, miners gear in some garish color and big boots.
Gasp. Nothing heroic or sacred is above the banalization of the experience.
To parody the miner's occupational gear and clothing and to parade it around in an atmosphere of voyeurism debases the profundity of the life-saving event.
What was noble and miraculous is now manipulated into a show-biz event. I said above, the circus is in town.
I call to mind a dictum that was impressed on me somewhere during the national celebration of the bicentennial in 1976 when anything that smelled of old American was abrogated and declared high art. The signing of the Declaration of Independence and the successful revolt against English rule changed history. Forced Americana-kitsch subterfuged it.
The dictum: "Given a good thing and enough time, we will, indeed, screw it up."
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net