[at-l] OT Islam Road Trip...Loooong

[kahley7@ptd.net (kahley)]

Like you have been dying to know what happened..LOL.  This is delayed
because my internet connection has been almost non existent since
Friday afternoon.

I must have asked myself, "What am I doing" a hundred times
on the way out there.  I knew this town from my youth.  My father
worked near there and had friends in the area and my mother was
addicted to the delights of a little ice creme shop so I've been
there many times.  I hated it.....in part because of the High schooler's
form of nationalism.  They always produced awesome football teams,
and were one of the three teams that always threatened our pre
eminence in the league.

But, mostly it was the area that I hated because it was a coal town.

Like soooo many other towns in the region, where coal had been found, it
was built in a tiny valley, the only flat land was devoted to three commerce
streets, the slopes went to the richer and upper middle class and the
rest of the town was impossibly steep hillsides filled with narrow row houses
built for the miners.  No front yards....no back yards to speak of, just walls
to hold back the hill.  In some places, the slope was so severe that from
the second floor of one house, you could see over the roof of the
house across the narrow street.  Now you might think that would be
wonderful for views of the surrounding hills except that the surrounding
hills were covered with coal slag.  Black and grey.  It seemed as if the only
trees and grass lay in a 20 ft median that ran down the middle of the main
shopping street....as if this manicured strip could make up for the oppression
of the stark, barren, black hills.

Although the colors of their school team were purple and white, the colors 
of the
town was black and grey.  The coal dust settled on everything, and I thought
then, it especially settled on the souls of the people.  "Cut me and I 
bleed coal dust"
was written on the bridge you crossed to come into town.  The  stream under 
that
bridge eventually ran out behind our neighborhood, some thirty miles 
downstream,
and brought the coal dust into my green world in the form of grey/black mud 
flats
where little grew, surrounding a stream so acidic that no sane person set 
foot in it.
I hated....yep...hated those people who would stand for such destruction.  What
kind of people would choose to live in a place like that..  The simplistic, 
naivety of youth....

The closer I got, the more unlikely I thought the story was.  A Mosque in this
town?  Forty years ago, it was a mix of European immigrants brought here
by the mining.  Poles, Greeks, Italians, Irish...good people... made hard 
by the
work and the oppression of the black hills of dumped mine waste that 
surrounded
them.  Lots of Catholic churches and even more bars.  They didn't welcome
strangers because the jobs were drying up and everyone had to fight to hold 
onto
what they had.  The idea that they now welcomed a Moslem community,  this
town that almost openly hosted the KKK.....just seemed to odd to be true.

All this stuff was swirling around as I neared the town and I had to 
concentrate on
my driving thru the narrow streets.   I really should have done some research
before I left so that I knew where the Mosque was. There was no listing in the
phone book so I tried driving around looking for it.  Navigating the narrow 
streets
with their "one way" attempt to keep things moving, I scanned for any 
sign.....
for people who "looked"  to be Moslem  in their dress or headgear with no 
luck.

I noticed that the town looked cheerier than I remembered .  There were many
flags and some bunting and signs mixed with a liberal sprinkling of purple and
white.  It dawned on me that it being Friday, there would be a football 
game and
maybe it was the homecoming game which would explain why the streets were
full of kids at noon, they usually had a half day off for homecoming,  At 
one point
I sported the onion bulb minaret shape so associated with the middle east and
thought I had found it.  On closer inspection, it turned out to be a 
Ukrainian-Greek
Orthodox Catholic Church.

Eventually, I did find it (I think) in a nondescript building but there was 
no one around
and no indication of when there might be.  From reading the posts that came 
after I
left, I now know why.  I wrote a note and slipped it thru the slot.  It 
said that I knew
one of the reasons for America was that people needed a place to freely 
practice
their religion and that if they couldn't be free to do so, I was not free 
and that I would
be back.  A patrol car drove by and I decided to leave before I did 
anything that would
reopen my FBI file <g>.  Did another cruise of the town center looking for 
someone
with which to talk and then admitted to myself that I was getting really 
silly and left.

This whole trip was soooo un-me.  I'm not the bleeding heart type...not 
even particularly
PC but I'm not a bigot and I hate bullies.  I will go back if I can make 
some connection
to the community especially next month when I fear the KKK types may make 
trouble.

Now to the good part.  Now to the part that warmed my soul.  As I left 
town, soooo
relieved to be out of there, I noticed something I cannot believe I missed 
on the way in.
Green....the hills were turning GREEN.  What looked at a distance to be 
birch and
evergreens were taking over the hillsides and hills were turning GREEN.  There
was no grass, no leave litter but these wonderful trees were clinging onto 
the steep
hills of slag and GROWING.  I bet some were 20 years old or maybe more since
the hard life they were living may be stunting their growth, but they were 
there.  I
pulled off the road and looked back at the town and ALL the HILLS HAD TREES
on them.  I couldn't believe that I didn't notice on the way in, but the 
many trips I
had made as a child had trained me to keep my eyes down so as not to be 
offended
by the monumental scar that man had left on this valley.  There was still one
stark lifeless ridge behind the colliery. where the mines still dumped 
their waste but
even the southern end of that hill of slag was being reclaimed by the trees.

That was why the town seemed more cheery!  The hills were greening and the dust
had settled and didn't blow black everyday.  I thought this town ...the 
whole coal
region would be sterile for my lifetime but now I know if I live to an 
average age,
I will see the scars heal and the trees triumph.  If my theory of what 
generations
of living without green has done to this town is true.....if the 
intolerance was in some
part grown from the oppression of the black'/gray hills that surrounded it, 
maybe the
people are changing and there will be no trouble for the Mosque.  I don't 
know......
but the sight of those tress gave me so much hope I just can't express it.

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