Sunday Morning in the Mines
September 28, 2017
Are you looking at my legs? I bet you are because they’re the best damn legs of anyone in Sunday Morning in the Mines. I know you wonder how my pants, held high by my chest, got those big holes. I don’t remember and don’t want to after another six days digging for gold in the high Sierra. Saturday nights I forget I’ve been here long enough to know I won’t get rich but have to keep trying because there’s nothing else to do.
Those three guys to your left, reading the bible, aren’t hungover but they didn’t have much fun last night, and neither did the boss in the cabin, writing his loot into the company book. That guy in the white shirt sure enjoyed himself and continues this morning as two buddies hold him up. Behind them solemn old Jim, or whatever his name is, puffs a cigar and stares into mountains. Further left four rough guys ride through camp, one taking a switch to his horse and another taking a switch to him. I reckon they’re headed up the hill far left where several guys dance and roughhouse under a cabin canopy.
Front and center our wooden mining cradles rest by a dying fire. Maybe painter Charles Christian Nahl should put down his fancy brush and look for some gold.