The Day I met America

I always thought I was the perfect picture of your American girl.


I was born a coal miners daughter, in the hills of WV.

Raised a Southern Belle in South Carolina

Became a pageant queen and married my High School sweetheart

Spent almost 10 years as a stay at home mom to a daughter and a son

Started a ministry for those my police husband found in need

And sang in church…isn’t that the perfect picture of America?

Today I took down that "perfect picture," pulled out the nail it hung from, and smashed in the wall. Know what I found? The real America.



Working in a foundry were some of the nicest men I have ever met, manipulating molten metal, forming it with molds of chemically treated sand. I stood at the end of a row of empty work stations, face shields and gloves left neatly behind. Sadly the men that normally lined the walls had not been working for this foundry for over 20 years, as was required to survive the most recent round of layoffs.

“We have been in business over 111 years and don’t know if we will have work through the end of the week,” I heard them mention as I conducted my safety inspection of their property.

One worker had invested his wages by farming the land around his home and paying the medical bills his wife had accumulated due to her illness. I really thought he was going to cry, “I’d leave today, give the job to a boy who needs it, but I can’t do without the insurance for my wife.”

I continued my tour of the plant, searching for any safety hazard that I could prevent to make the environment more pleasant. (Those of you chuckling- have obviously been in a foundry) I was seriously pondering the huge exhaust pipe with Bible references hand chalked onto it when a grey haired man popped up from nowhere, “Glad to meet you. I use to work with you pawpaw at the machine shop.”

Half startled I stuttered through, “Good to meet you too, yeah, he was something.”

I could feel the tears filling my eyes, I hoped it wasn’t noticeable through my safety glasses layered over my prescription lenses. I am emotional anyway, but the death of my PapPa at age 7 was the first true loss I experienced. I didn’t care for the feeling and it really stuck with me. I focused on shaking the hand of a man who had shaken the hand of my PapPa and was genuinely honored to meet him. Somehow I was thankful we did find a little something, nothing he did wrong, just a machine guard that could be a little bigger to protect him a little better. It was by far the most satisfying find of the day.

I said a prayer for the families affected by the slow down, and continued my inspection while accepting kind compliments on the training I did. "You did real good, you were real relaxed, we really enjoyed it,” I heared from one worker. I thanked him, suddenly aware of just how fortunate I had been to go to college to be a teacher, and how he knew more than I did hands down about the equipment I trained on that morning…he had been using it daily for just about as long as I have been alive.

I said my goodbyes and stepped out into the frigid mountain snow, falling snowflakes stuck to my face like wet kisses. I still had a full day of cinderblock, coffin vault, and bridge beam manufacturing ahead of me, but I couldn’t help but think of how it would take $7,000 just to pay the power bill for the foundry this month. I said another prayer for the workers as I climbed into the truck.

I tossed that "perfect picture" of America in to the foundry dumpster as I drove by, and left cooling metal for drying cement.