Husbands ruled the house, women cleaned it, and any strong female opinion was often rewarded with a fat lip. Drinking was a hobby in that little town, and as in a lot of small towns, everyone knew everyone else’s business. It wasn’t odd to see your neighbor howling at the moon, and every now and then some of the miners would wander down for a cold one and tie their horses to the stop sign. The local bar, Lou Anne’s, was always hopping. It got real hot in the summertime and the dust from the mills wrapped around the people and held them firmly in their places, and the echo of coughing miners was so common you just didn’t hear it. It seemed like there was a railroad crossing on every other street, where coils of steel were piled up high along the tracks like giant gleaming snakes resting in the sun. The streets were narrow and filled with men in Levi’s with metal lunch boxes coming and going to the mills and the coal mines. Even the kids felt the times, and the times were tough. It was one of those places where everyone was old, or just plain seemed like it. I grew up in a dirty little steel town called Steubenville, in eastern Ohio. Strippers, Tippers, and Pony ClippersĬynthia Levine.
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