Sunday Scribblings: Hi, My Name Is Carl Nash

Hi, my name is Carl Nash. I am a made up person that Raymond Pert created to tell a made up story as if it happened in and after a real life event. The real life event was the Sunshine Mine Fire of 1972, near Kellogg, Idaho. Ninety-one men were killed. My story is about what people did and felt in the aftermath of the fire.


Free

Down the Jewell Shaft of the Sunshine Mine
The men called bologna horse cock
And the miner who loved horse cock most was
Carl Nash. His hands chewed and bloody
From shoveling mine car after mine car of muck,
At lunch Carl unfolded a cloth napkin on the lunchroom
Table and laid out his horse cock and onion sandwich,
Prayed thanks, and ate it like bread at the communion rail.

Billy trudged down two houses after each snow fall
And heaved shovel after shovel into tall berms to clear
The way for Carl Nash to tell Billy he shovelled snow
Like a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest
And to drive his Rambler Ambassador on to the glass road
Leading up Big Creek Gulch and day shift at the Sunshine Mine.

When the mine fire hit the lunch room at the 4100
Level, Carl Nash died with a cloth napkin unfolded
And dropped his nose into his spongy horse cock sandwich.

Months later snow fell hard and deep and Billy
Trudged down and offered to shovel snow for Mrs. Nash,
Who thanked him very much but couldn’t afford to pay him
The way Carl did. Billy trudged back toward home
And turned around and knocked again on Mrs. Nash’s door.
“It’s okay. I’ll shovel your walk for free.”