The stories of the coal miners about 1920 remind me of the time my parents had moved from VA to Corbin, KY. Corbin was a railroad center in 1920 and employed many men. My dad worked at the Roundhouse when the strike began. The L & N Railroad brought officials in from Georgia to fill the positions of men on strike. Out of necessity, there were still many men who continued to work. I can recall when I was a teenager many years later, those men were still referred to as "scabs." Once you scabbed, you were a scab for life. During the strike, men carried guns for protection, women were afraid to walk to town during the day, and families did not leave their homes after dark for fear of being shot. My parents lived in a house at the foot of a hill. My older brother was the new baby born in the house, numbering 3 children. One night my parents were awakened suddenly by a bright light from the window that filled their bedroom. When my dad looked out, he saw a burning cross at the top of the hill. He and my mother became very frightened. The blazing cross could be seen for miles. Shortly after that, my dad took the family and returned to Middlesboro, KY, where he had worked before moving to Corbin. About 1924, they returned to Corbin and he built the house our family lived in and my mother occupied until her death in 1998. (There's another story I'm sure many people have heard about Corbin, Ky. It concerns a Halloween night, 1919, when the black people were run out of town. [I grew up in an all-white community.] A bad time in Corbin history. A video documentary was done several years ago that is a very poor depiction of the town, the people, and the incidents that took place that Halloween night. When I saw the film, I was angered and embarrassed.) Pat O'Neal