Your story is very similar to what happened to my grandfather - only it happened here in PA around the Everson/Scottdale are. My ggrandfather was a coal miner around the Everson/Scottdale area during the 1880s. My grandfather was born in 1882. My ggrandfather became a union organizer in the area and was eventually blackballed by the mine owners. That meant they had to move out of the company housing and spent the winter of 1890 in a half-tent - father, mother and 7 children. As a result my grandfather quit school at the age of 8 (3rd grade) and went into the mines as a trapper boy making seventy-five cents a week. Happily he eventually passed the State Mine Foreman's test (with the help of my grandmother who went to school until 8th grade) and quit the mines in 1935 because he didn't want his sons to be coal miners. Pat -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 216 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len