Shamokin

Mom and I are in Shamokin, a little coal town nestled deep in the hills of Central Pennsylvania.  At one time this was a booming place, bustling with coal miners, bankers, wealthy investors and other workers.  You can tell that by the presence of majestic old buildings with fine masonry and carved stone decorations, beautifully detailed Victorian homes and artfully wrought metals and statuary.  This town is a dream for anyone interested in architectural details and variety of structures.

But the sad part is that these buildings are empty, or crumbling, or being sub-divided.  The native rock here has been used for centuries to make sturdy, long-lasting homes.  Amish farms are built of these materials, by hand with tools wielded without the aid of electricity.  This is Shamokin, a shadow if it’s former glory.
The people here are tired, I think.  Tired of being broke.  One by one the businesses pull out.  More and more people are out of work, needing help.  Things are a little dingy: the houses, the streets, the signs, as if coal dust had settled over everything and colored the mood of the place.

But these are good people.  They work hard, they tend to one another.  They’re proud, too, don’t want to take help, even when they need it.  One of the things that’s hardest for mom is to convince folks that it’s ok to get help from the government.  It seems that their pride is all they have left sometimes, after all the flooding, and they don’t want to give that up.  Mom and the guys do their best to convince them that they paid their taxes and these taxes are coming back to them to help when they need it most.  And that works mostly because it’s true.  They deserve help and they need it.

Looking around it seems even the sky is tired.  Gray skies raining on gray-green hills.  The water is still running high and it too, is gray.  It takes just a little storm to restart the flooding.  Folks have been cleaning and fixing, then cleaning and fixing again.   It’s wearing on everyone and it shows.

Help is here for the flooding, from the government and the voluntary agencies.  But the help is not enough to fix the real problems.  The town is ghostly.  People seem haunted as they pass.  Younger people have left this town, and the older ones will stay here until they die.  There are no jobs here to speak of: every big business that built this town has moved on.  There are few farms because the land is so steep and great piles of coal and slag mar the hillsides.  The town, and in fact the entire area, has been used up and left for dead.

But these people aren’t dead.  They are pulling themselves up, one by one; out of the the flooded mire, cleaning up, fixing up and living.  And when the sun shines here again, they will turn their faces to the sun.
Is there a future for these people?  They deserve one, a future with jobs and children and good health.  The people of Shamokin are nothing if not resilient.  And once they shake off the water, they’ll be ok.