It's not all about the children, you know

The rescue of nine men trapped for three days in a western Pennsylvania coal mine unfolded over the weekend. I wouldn't say that I was glued to CNN, but I was interested in what was going on, so I was watching for a while as they brought the miners to the surface.

I had worried about them, and like most for a time I feared they were dead already, or going to die soon. Maybe the rescue wasn't so much a miracle as a Herculean effort of muscle and technology, but it was interesting, and it seemed real. Besides, they came out alive, and it's been so long since we had any good news.

Because of all the coverage, I started thinking of a song I hadn't heard in years. "Three Days Straight" was part of

the self-titled debut of singer-songwriter Peter Case, and it's so out of print it's not even funny. The chorus of the song starts out "I was buried alive for three days straight," since it's a song about a mine accident. I had the album on vinyl back in the 80s, and for the longest time I still had a dub on cassette, but I couldn't find it, so I tried eBay.

Got it in one. $6.25 including shipping! Woohoo! It's a really good album, as I recall.

Does anybody write songs about mine accidents any more? Come to think of it, Peter Case may be one of America's greatest natural resources. Chances are you've never heard of him, but he's one of those people who sing about something beyond yeah-yeah-yeah.

It seems that if we're going to have another Depression, there ought to be hobos and folk music. Not that I'm predicting dire economic straits for the U.S., I just think we ought to be prepared culturally.

And, um, we're not.

before - after