Coal jobs return to Panola; economy waiting on bump

“You know how President Trump promised to bring back coal jobs? Well, me and Jimmy Tubbs got the first two.”
So said Johnny Nelson one day last week as the two of them hauled coal from the “mine” and loaded it into the back of his pickup.
The mine is located under the house at Annie-Glenn’s Bed and Breakfast, not the coal’s original location but the place where it got delivered years ago when it was burned in the home’s fireplaces. It has been there ever since.
Back then, the Batesville Ice and Coal Company made daily rounds with a wagon and later a truck selling blocks of ice to homeowners for their iceboxes during summer and coal for heating during winter. When the heat in the home converted to bottled gas, the leftover coal remained where it had been piled. There it was left for almost 70 years (dated by my mother’s memory of morning sickness caused her first exposure to the gas odor when she visited her parents there while pregnant with me).
Nelson got interested in the coal to power his train, Marie, which he has previously fueled with wood. After he had determined from an earlier trip that the coal, having been kept away from sun and moisture, has remained in good shape to burn, he and Jimmy returned for more last week, breaking up large coal chunks into smaller pieces.
Marie will run on either fuel, but coal burns hotter and more efficiently. Whenever he runs the train on wood, he has to make sure he’s got plenty on hand and then constantly feed the firebox on the small steam locomotive.
With coal in the firebox, he hopes to slow his pace and enjoys visitors who come see the train during this Saturday’s planned exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War I. Marie was there, and Nelson has written her story that starts in today’s edition on page 1A.