A few years ago, I wrote Rocket Boys, a book about growing up in the little mining town of Coalwood, W. Va. It was a #1 New York Times bestseller, was translated into eight languages, and is now studied in over 400 high school and college American literature and English classes. In 1999, Universal Studios made a popular movie based on Rocket Boys called "October Sky." Two more books about life in Coalwood, The Coalwood Way and Sky of Stone, followed.
It was my intention when I wrote my "Coalwood books" to simply entertain, but since their publication, I have received tens of thousands of letters and e-mails from people around the world thanking me for the inspiration they've received from my work. I am humbled by this response, mainly because this inspiration doesn't really come from me but from the people who raised me.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I began to speak on how the people of my hometown lived lives of dignity even during the toughest of times and how they taught me hard but true lessons of strength and courage. My remarks were nearly always followed by standing ovations. Clearly, I was touching a chord.
After seeing one my speeches, Health Communications, Inc. (the publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) called and asked me to expand on my speech and write a book based on the wisdom of Coalwood. At first, I hesitated. After all, I am not a philosopher. But after giving it some thought, I decided the publisher was right, that people today could use the wisdom of those who tested their approach to life during good times and bad. That is why I agreed to write We Are Not Afraid, a book that is meant to address what I call long-term fear, or the habit of being afraid.
Dread is the little voice that keeps whispering to us about all the bad things that might happen. When a constant sense of dread takes over, people become afraid to travel, to take new jobs, to consider new concepts and ideas . Everyday challenges become too much to handle. The joy of living is lost to despair.
Sadly, people get hooked on being afraid. A few days after Sept. 11, I boarded a jet plane and flew to New York City. I was one of only six passengers on a jumbo jet. One of them was a physician of Pakistani descent who had been stranded in Florida and was trying to make his way home. He was extremely nervous, both because he was afraid someone might mistake him for a terrorist and because he was afraid one of the other five passengers along for the ride might actually be a terrorist. I sat with him and we talked. Before long, we were talking about Coalwood and the people who raised me. And before long, he wasn't afraid.
We laughed about the sometimes strange ways of the people who brought me up, but he saw their wisdom, straight and clear. He especially liked my story of how my mother stood up for herself when she wanted a bathtub and hot water to go with it. At the time, no house in Coalwood had either. When my father refused to ask permission to put one in, she went to see Mr. Carter, the man who had built the town. Rather than let her into his office, Mr. Carter sent for my father, who arrived from the mine covered with coal dirt and shame. "Elsie, you have to come home," he begged. My mom replied, loud enough for everyone to hear within a mile, "Homer, you're as good a miner as this old company's got, but even if you weren't, you deserve to have hot water in your house. It isn't civilized. A man like Mr. Carter, he knows that. Somebody just needs to tell him out loud." She had told him out loud and as a result, Mom got her bathtub and her hot water. Following her example, it didn't take long before the women of Coalwood were asking the company for a lot more, like better groceries in the company store.
I also told the doctor about another lesson my mom taught us. One morning, my father looked over at my mom, who'd been up for an hour preparing him his usual sumptuous breakfast, and said, "You know, Elsie, you don't look so good in the morning." Now, at the time, my dad was the mine superintendent. He was used to telling his men what he thought and having them hop to correct their errors. My mom sensed Dad had managed to get himself puffed up, a prime West Virginia sin. Accordingly, she laid down her spatula and said, "Well, Homer, we can fix that," and went back to bed. And she never, ever got up and fixed his breakfast again. My dad was careful not to ever be puffed up after that, at least around my mother.
The doctor laughed at my stories and allowed that there are far too many people in the world who manage to get themselves puffed up and believe that their way is the only way. Being puffed up, I replied, is just another way of being afraid, of showing bluster when inside fear has taken hold. The model I use in We Are Not Afraid to throw off the habits of fear is the one I knew when I was a boy growing up in the 1940s and 1950s.
It might be fairly said that Coalwood, West Virginia always lived during perilous times.... Every day, the men of Coalwood entered that mine to dig out the coal, an inherently risky proposition. That required courage, but not the kind that men can show in an instant. Coalwood's miners had to figure out how to be brave over a long period of time. The same was true for the town's women. Every day, they sent their husbands off to work the deep coal, knowing very well they might not ever see them again. It is impossible to do that year after year without developing a philosophy of life that defeats fear and puts aside the feelings of constant dread .... It is a wisdom that works no matter when or where we live.
Simply stated, this wisdom can be expressed in four attitudes toward life:
We are proud of who we are.
We stand up for what we believe.
We keep our families together.
We trust in God but rely on ourselves.
If we all take on these attitudes, I am confident we can join the good people of my hometown and say, believe, and assume, no matter what may come our way, We are not afraid.
Editor's Note: On May 6, intense rainfall caused devastating floods and mudslides in much of McDowell county, W.Va., which includes Coalwood. No deaths were reported, but 90 percent of the homes in Coalwood were flooded, and some homes experienced a water level of four feet or more. For more information, see http://www.homerhickam.com/flood.htm.
Excerpts from We Are Not Afraid by Homer Hickam, copyright 2002, with permission of the publisher, Health Communications, Inc.
