Homer H. Hickam - The Coalwood Way

Table of Contents

To Charlie, Linda D., and Susan Black,
beloved family, who left us much too soon.

Matters of faith are not really accessible to our rationalthinking. I find it best not to ask any questions, but to justbelieve....

Dr. Wernher von Braun, rocket scientist

The Lord works us... even though we dont know it.

The Reverend Julius Little Richard, preacher

There are girls and then there are girls. But that girl there is awoman. Dont ever get them confused.

Roy Lee Cooke, the Big Creek lovemaster

PRAISE FOR THE COALWOOD WAY

Another classic coming-of-age tale... the rocket boy
soars again.

People

Hickam... has a wonderful story to tell.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Perceptive and honest... A charming and sentimental, yet
realistic paean to the values, biases, and hopes of small-town America.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

[A] powerful story... since Hickam writes without pity but
with love, he causes readers to care.

Boston Herald

Recalling a lost era, [Hickam] brings his American
hometown to life with vivid images, appealing characters and
considerable literary magic.

Publishers Weekly

With keen memory and dedication to fact, Hickam mines
his childhood, playing the trials of growing up and self
discovery against the unstoppable forces of change. Along
the way emerge truths and realizations that resonate on deep
levels. Indeed, Hickam is powerfully gifted in rendering the
personal into the universal.

The Denver Post

More than a good read, charming and often moving enough
to bring a lump to your throat.

American Way

A heartwarming tale of family love, small-town living and
boyhood adventure that will take readers back to their own
youthful days. I loved it!

Abilene Reporter-News (Texas)

A story of heartwarming possibilities... original and
nostalgically humorous... The Coalwood Way is the story
of a rocket boy shooting for the moon. But it is also the story
of the maturation of a boy, a family and a town.

BookPage

PRAISE FOR
HOMER HICKAMS #1 BESTSELLER

OCTOBER SKY

Unforgettable... Unlike so many memoirs, this book
brings to life more than one mans experiences. It brings to
life the lost town of Coalwood, W. Va.

USA Today

Mr. Hickam builds a story of overcoming obstacles worthy
of Frank Capra, especially in its sweetness and
honest sentimentality.

The New York Times

A stirring tale that offers something unusual these days...
a message of hope in an age of cynicism.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

A great read... One closes the book with an immense
feeling of satisfaction.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Hickam has a great story to tell.... [His] recollections of
small-town America in the last years of small-town America
are so cinematic that even those of us who didnt grow
up there might imagine we did.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

A refreshingly hopeful book about personal triumph
and achieving ones dreams.

San Antonio Express-News

[Hickam] is a very adept storyteller.... Its a good bet this is
the story as he told it to himself. It is a lovely one, and in the
career of Homer H. Hickam, Jr., who prevailed over the facts
of his life to become a NASA engineer training astronauts
for space walks, that made all the difference.

The New York Times Book Review

Great memoirs must balance the universal and the
particular. Too much of the former makes it overly familiar;
too much of the latter makes readers ask what the story has
to do with them. In his debut, Hickam walks that line
beautifully. No matter how jaded readers have become by the
onslaught of memoirs, none will want to miss the fantastic
voyage of BCMA, Auk and Coalwood.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Compelling.Chicago Tribune

Thoroughly captivating.

The Christian Science Monitor

Rocket Boys, while a true story, reads like a well-written novel.
It deals with a wide range of issues, including the bittersweet
experience of coming of age. It also provides an intimate
look at a dying town where people still allowed kids to dream
and helped them make those dreams become reality.

Rocky Mountain News

[A] nostalgic and entertaining memoir.

People

AUTHORS NOTE

MEMOIRS ARE TOUGH things to write. How can you remember what somebody said or did forty years ago? I dont have an answer. All I know is that I do. Ive changed a few names and disguised some other folks to protect them but, otherwise, this is pretty much the way it happened, I swan.

Homer H. Hickam, Jr.
Huntsville, Alabama
March 14, 2000

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THERE HAVE BEEN many gifts and honors to come my way since the publication of Rocket Boys: A Memoir (aka OctoberSky), but none have been so wonderful as the recollections Ive received from the citizens of Coalwood, past and present, as well as from folks from all over McDowell County and West (by God) Virginia. There are too many individuals to list so I will simply give my humble thanks and reflect that this book would not have been possible without them. This includes Jim, my steadfast friend and brother. I would also like to thank Frank and Mickey, the greatest agents known to mankind; my editor Tom, whos the very best at what he does; and David, my touchstone. Thanks are also due to Linda, my wife and assistant, who works so hard and does so much, as well as her parents, Walt and Sue, who are among my heroes. Of course, nothing would be possible without the continued, gentle vexations that come my way from one Elsie Gardener Lavender Hickam. As ever, Im proud to know and love her.

SONG OF THE CAPE

OF ALL THE lessons I learned when I built my rockets, the most important were not about chemistry, physics, or metallurgy, but of virtues, sins, and other true things that shape us as surely as rivers carve valleys, or rain melts mountains, or currents push apart the sea. I would learn these lessons at a time when Coalwood, the mining town where I had lived my entire life, was just beginning to fade away. Yet, as the fall of 1959 began, and the leaves on the trees in the forests that surrounded us began to explode in spectacular color, Coalwoods men still walked with a trudging grace to and from the vast, deep mine, and its women bustled in and out of the company stores and fought the coal dust that drifted into their homes. In the dark old schools, the children learned and the teachers taught, and, in snowy white churches built on hillside cuts, the preachers preached, and God, who we had no doubt was also a West Virginian, was surely doing His work in heaven, too. At the abandoned slack dump we called Cape Coalwood, rockets still leapt into the air, and boyish voices yet echoed between ancient, worn mountains beneath a pale and watchful sky. Coalwood endured as it always had, but a wheel was turning that would change nearly everything, and no one, not even my father, would be able to stop it. When that brittle parchment autumn turned into our deepest, whitest winter, this and many other lessons would be taught. Though they were hard and sometimes cruel things to learn, they were true, and true things, as the people of Coalwood saw fit to teach me, are always filled with a shining glory.